When Sybil calls

by RangerBumble

Summary:

You can't blame psychics for being cryptic but John really wishes this particular conduit for the forces of reality hadn't called in the middle of his Justice League debrief.

In which DCU characters are faced with the truth about the Hellblazer's very Vertigo life and almost everyone has something to say on the subject of John Constantine.

Tags are subject to change.

Notes:

My first published work. It started as a one shot but it got away from me and is now a LongFic WIP.

Shoot me a line in the comments if you have any questions, constructive criticism, or just want to say hello. Some of the explanations from the comments section have been added to specific chapter end notes. I will keep updating them as readers continue to let me know what is confusing in the story.

Tags are subject to change.

Chapter 1: Call to action

Summary:

In which Mercury has a few things to say on the subject of John Constantine.

John Constantine hated debriefs.

Bloody paperwork was a close second. 

If he had things his way, he’d never report to anyone and keep his wizardly secrets tucked away in the comfort of some dingy dive bar.

But no. Somehow, he’d reached the tipping point, filled in his apocalypse punch card, and 'earned' a free Justice League membership in the process.

Strewth. Now he had to make his bizarre, happenstance-based magic look coherent on an expense report and explain why he was just so conveniently in town at the scene of disasters. It was easier in person, but still a pain in the arse.

His meeting with the big three—Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman—had gone on far too long, and it didn’t seem like it was slowing down. Every second felt like an eternity. He wanted to leap through the star-studded windows and let the vacuum of space suck the life out of him. At least it would be quiet.

He was just trying to explain why he’d had to meet an ex at a bar for a one-night stand that was "absolutely necessary" for his process when he was saved by the bell, or rather the ring of a phone.

Not just any phone—a brick of a Nokia. John had convinced the capes and the tights crowd that he didn’t have one. That by all rights, he shouldn’t have one. Magic, after all.

Magic, along with a stubborn belief that you couldn’t be assigned work if they couldn’t find you.

He reached for the phone, already standing up to take the call.

“I’ve got to take this.”

Batman shot him a look. "Unless it's the end of the world, it can wait."

John froze, glancing at the screen. The number on the caller ID sent a cold shiver down his spine. It was Mercury. And if she was calling, something bad was happening.

"Err, yeah," he muttered, catching his breath. "That's right. End of the world."

Superman, ever the well-meaning berk, chimed in, "Then you should answer it here. We're here for any emergency."

"Unless it's not an emergency," Batman growled.

John knew what Batman was thinking—that he'd arranged the call to get out of the meeting. Honestly, it wasn’t a bad idea, but that wasn’t what was happening here. This was Mercury, and she wouldn't call unless it was serious.

He sighed, dropping his shoulders. No point in trying to have a private conversation in front of bloody Superman "Alright, alright. Speakerphone it is. But I do the talking."

He slid the phone onto the table and hit "answer."

"Hey, Merc. How’s it going?"

"Uncle John? Are you there? I can’t find you. You’re not anywhere, and it’s so cold. It’s so empty. Did they get you?"

John winced. She sounded young—too young—and there was fear in her voice that tore at him. She was in her late twenties, but at moments like this, she was still that vulnerable kid he first met in need of protection.

"It’s alright, love," he said softly, trying to reassure her. "I’m not touching the world, but I’m still kicking. I’m in space. Got you on speaker with the —"

"It hurts," she interrupted. "Oh God, it hurts, and he... he isn’t—he isn’t ready. They’re pulling up the world. Like when we met. Fire and fear and death corrupted..." She trailed off with a sniffle.

"Merc? Mercury, stay with me. Breathe in. And out. On a scale of one to ten, how much pain?"

"Like... eight?"

"Good. Focus on your body. Any broken bones?"

"No."

"Any bruising or strain?"

"No."

"Any scrapes or cuts?"

"I think I pulled out some hair? It’s bloody."

John leaned back in his seat, finally able to breathe a bit easier.

"Alright, then. Where does it hurt, love?"

"Reality."

A pause, "I think? It’s hard to tell. And harder to talk about."

Pain laced her words. He could feel it, even through the static of the phone.

"It’s a shiny place. Full of cruelty. And white suits that make them disappear while they make you disappear..."

"Merc, you said ‘like when we met.’ Is this the ley lines?"

"No, no, not the action. The actors. They’re still building a machine to rewrite the world. You have to save the boyking. You have to. He’s the new fulcrum. A balance. Like you."

John’s brow furrowed as he tried to process her words. He spoke gently, like soothing a frightened animal.

"You got a bit cryptic there at the end, girl. I know you don’t like being cut off from your powers, but you’re in pain yeah? I want you to please consider taking those tabs I left last time. They’re anti-psychotics. They’ll really help with the Sybil stuff—"

She sniffed loudly, voice cracking. "Okay. But only if you try."

John sighed, heart sinking. "Thanks, Merc. I will. But you... you need to get to a safe place, alright? A patch of green, if you can."

Her tone went cold. "Hypocrite. I will go to a library, thank-you-very-much."

"The parliament is a safe place," John muttered, but his heart wasn't in it.

"That’s rich, coming from you," she shot back, voice tight with anger.

John rubbed his forehead, exasperated. "We’ve talked about this. Alec is—"

"Someone you should take to your fancy space HR department," she interrupted.

John’s face fell. "We weren’t even employed by—"

"It’s a pattern, John," she said, cutting him off. "You’ve got access to real therapy for the first time in your life. Not Ravenscar, actual people willing to talk. If you want me on the chill pills, you better put your money where your mouth is and shape up. Tell them about Alec, and Zed, and Anthea, and—"

"Merc." John’s voice was a low growl. "Please."

She pressed on, her voice trembling. "If these people are your friends, they will—"

"Merc—" he pleaded again, more desperate this time. 

"They will care about Epiphany Gr—"

The phone flew from the table, hurtling across the room and embedding itself in the bulkhead with a dull thud.

He sat there, winded, red-eyed, and feeling the weight of the conversation crushing him. The bloody founders of the Justice League staring a hole in his head. He needed to get the hell out of there.

Mercury had mentioned the “actors,” like the first time they met. She’d always seen things clearly. Reading between the lines that meant somewhere out there was a government conspiracy—a group of dehumanized people in white, trying to unmake reality itself. They probably had prisoners. Maybe even a new Laughing Magician. 

Or not.

There's lots of ways to embody balance. In John's experience they were usually about equally awful for the guy doing the balancing.

This was going to be a terrible pile of paperwork.

Notes:

This is a an attempt to merge every Hellblazer timeline while exploring what it means for one person to have that much lived experience.

Watch this space for continuity and timeline notes each chapter. Please ask questions in the comments if there is anything you want clarification on:

This story takes place in November 2025.

John Constantine was born in 1953. He hasn't been aged down via reboot like the Justice League has, but he looks like he's in his mid-thirty's. The Vertigo Hellblazer run and Constantine: Hellblazer happened mostly unchanged and those events happened on or near the original printing dates. The Hellblazer Rebirth series, and the first two volumes of Hellblazer: Black Label happened over the last two years. Justice League Dark mostly happened in the twentyteens but it's spotty because I'm not caught up. Most individual standalone series happened with dates that will be noted when those events come up in the story. Any Hellblazer content not covered by this continuity is covered by the Hellblazer: Subterranean multiverse rules; it happened in another world but John knows about it.

The Justice League hasn't disbanded so most of the DCU is set near the end of the Rebirth era but it's a real mixed bag with DCAU, Vertigo, Wildstorm and Harley Quinn animated series elements added in. Basically it's canon if I've seen it.

Mercury is a child psychic introduced in 1989 for the story arc 'Fear Machine'. As of Hellblazer Rebirth she's in her mid twenty's. It's not important but my fanon to make the timeline work is she spent about a decade asleep under a hill in Scotland. Mercury is a little OOC here. Normally she is of the opinion that anything John can do she can do better. Blame it on her being psychically overloaded and this chapter being the first piece of fanfic I ever wrote.

Chapter 2: Context is a bitch

Summary:

In which Zatanna Zatarra has a few things to say on the subject of John Constantine

Diana Prince, Wonder Woman, raised an eyebrow at the phone still embedded in the bulkhead.

She knew Constantine to be a sloppy man, but not a sloppy magician. The burst of uncontrolled magic was concerning. He’d seemed calm and collected right up until the end of the call. Diana had founded Justice League Dark and had worked closely with both John Constantine and Alec Holland. Nothing in their past interactions suggested any pre-existing conflict. If anything, the wizard was always politely distant with the Swampthing.

In retrospect, that might have been a sign itself.

John Constantine was never polite with anyone—not even her.

"Do you have something to bring to our Human Resources department?"

"No." He snapped, then checked his tone. "No. It's old news. Just a bit of miscommunication when we were both much younger."

"He hurt you." She pressed. It wasn’t a question.

John’s eyes darted around the room, as if avoiding her gaze might help him escape the conversation. "It was the right call. More people would have gotten hurt if he hadn't."

She was unconvinced, but she knew when to let a line of questioning rest.

Batman didn't know when to let a line of questioning rest. It was part of what made him Batman. He cut straight to the end:

"Who is Epiphany?"

It was a direct interrogation. He couldn't have expected a direct answer.

Instead of some quick avoidance, Constantine took a calming breath. The tension drained from his body. His eyes lost a little focus, and a lazy smile spread across his face as he spoke, his voice soft with affection.

"My wife. She doesn’t belong on the list. I love my wife."

Batman narrowed his eyes. There was no mention of a Ms. Constantine in either the JL’s personal files or the more detailed records he kept in the Batcave. He also knew Constantine had been involved with multiple partners in the past month—including Nanaue Sha'ark. Moments before the phone call, Constantine had been trying to expense a one-night stand. No mention of a wife. Most concerning, his tone now was reminiscent of something the Mad Hatter might be responsible for.

"We have no record of—"

Batman could read people, but Superman could read people—heartbeats, muscle contractions, pupil dilation. If he didn’t know better, he’d swear Constantine had just been hit with fast acting opiates. The sight was unnerving. Superman cut in, interrupting Batman with the only question that really mattered:

"Are you okay?"

 A pause 

"Yeah." John ran a rough hand down his face, coming back to himself a bit. "Yeah, don't... uh, don’t ask. Just drop it. The effect gets worse if you ask. I got it under control. Merc had no right."

"We do offer confidential counseling." He pressed on "The Justice League has some unusual workplace hazards." This was clearly something "Whatever you need. It's okay to not be okay."

John visibly pulled himself together. That was damn near understanding of the big guy. "Not sure we’ve got time for all that. Didn’t you hear?" A sarcastic note creeped into his voice "The world’s ending. Again."

"About that. Your source seemed—" Superman searched for the word

"Unreliable?" John challenged.

"Imprecise." Batman finished.

"That’s psychics for ya’. Prophecy runs on doubt but I assure you Mercury is the real deal."

The door hissed open, revealing a woman in a jaunty top hat and pinstripes.

"Sorry to interrupt, but Is everything alright in here?" Zatanna asked. "I know it's a private meeting, but I felt a surge of—"

Her gaze caught the phone embedded in the wall,

Ah.

Constantine, sensing an opportunity, took the chance to slip by her, heading toward the exit. As he passed, he tossed a comment over his shoulder:

"I'm getting back to the mud-ball. You cover the awkward questions, yeah?"

And with that, he was gone.

Zatanna exhaled, turning toward the others.

"So..." she began, her eyes flicking back to the phone. "What did he do?"

"Embedded a phone in the bulkhead," Batman replied, his tone deadpan.

Zatanna raised an eyebrow. "I can see that. What set him off?"

"A woman named Epiphany?" Superman offered.

Diana nodded, though there was no mirth in her expression. "His reaction was... Odd."

"That makes sense," Zee muttered, crossing her arms as she looked down at the floor. "Someone must've insulted her. Magic is all sorts of tangled up in emotions. You're lucky it didn’t go through the window."

Batman gave the reinforced glass of the space station a sidelong glance, but his gaze was unreadable as he waited for her to elaborate.

Zatanna sighed in frustration. "It’s complicated. And private." 

"He didn't seem to think so, said you would answer for him." Batman countered, his voice low but stern. "Is this a security concern?"

Zatanna hesitated, choosing her words carefully. "I would be lying if I said it wasn’t... but there's really nothing to do about it."

She paused again before deciding it was finally time to share what she knew.

"Epiphany Greaves is a very talented alchemist, specialized in mental manipulation. She’s his wife. She loves him. He loves her. The problem is... he knows he didn’t choose to love her. She forces him to be happy. Or something close to it. It’s frustrating. We've ... talked. I can’t fix it because he doesn’t want it to stop. He’s so twisted up in his head, he thinks he needs a magical compulsion to feel loved. He gets unfocused just thinking about her."

Zatanna’s voice trembled slightly, and she took a breath before continuing.

"He—he’ll attack you if you insult her. I assume someone did?"

Superman furrowed his brow. "His contact. Mercury," he said, piecing things together. "He took a call during debrief. She suggested he had a pattern of behavior and should seek therapy. Started naming names."

Zatanna nodded, her lips tight. "Thus the phone throwing," she murmured. "I know Merc. Swampthing was on her list?"

"First thing," Batman confirmed.

Zatanna looked at the trio, her eyes heavy. "John does have a pattern of behavior. If we lived in a better world, then maybe he could do something else. I thought I could fix him when we were together, but now... I know better."

For a moment, she seemed lost in thought. She then glanced at Batman, a question in her eyes.

"Are you suicidal? Do you want to get hurt?"

His confusion at the sudden change of topic might have gone unnoticed if he wasn't in a room full of the people who knew him best. "No," he said firmly, unsure where she was going with this.

"But you choose to be out there each night?" Zatanna pressed, her gaze intense. "You've been hurt before. Do you regret it?"

"I'm saving lives," Batman answered, his tone resolute. "I’m not going to stop."

Zatanna nodded, her voice quieter now but still cutting through the room. "To clarify. You are willing to take a bullet to save a life, but if lives aren't on the line, you wouldn't choose to bleed without cause."

Batman thought for a moment, then nodded slowly.

"Correct." 

Zatanna’s gaze softened. "You should know that John’s like that too. Except... not. He—he has no line he won’t cross for someone else. Nothing. Not even sex."

Wonder Woman's face tightened, a subtle flicker of discomfort passing through her eyes, but Zatanna wasn’t finished.

"Sex is power and creation and purity and life. It's been part of magical practices since the very beginning," Zatanna continued, her voice unwavering. "It can also muck up a ritual, change a mindset, or even create a new life. And John Constantine has used that as a tool to save the world a truly remarkable number of times. Dozens of his acts of... self-prostitution have kept the world spinning. People and places he wouldn’t have chosen for himself. Not if it hadn't been the end of the world."

Superman frowned at the implications, but Zatanna pressed on, ignoring the discomfort in the room.

"Swampthing needed a seed, so he took one. It was a violation my father used to talk about—that lack of consent is a big part of why the Parliament of Trees still hasn't fully regrown. Afterwards, there were some empty apologies, but what happened happened. That was just the start. I think Alec broke something in that synchronicity magic of John's... it just keeps happening."

Zatanna paused, as if her words had just caught up with her. She looked at her friends, her eyes pleading for them to understand.

"So he copes," she continued, her voice rising "He drinks. He smokes. He dissociates. He has a wife who he treats like a drug, and a regular hookup who wants to devour him. Every now and then, when an angel needs its wings clipped or some druid priestess needs to lay a goddamn egg? He steps up."

Zatanna let her confession settled in. She'd wanted to say this for a long time.

"The worst part is, we can't stop him. We need him. He’s who the Justice League calls when we need a non-violent solution but aren’t going to look too closely at how things get done." She shook her head.

"The truth is, we all know that when lives are on the line, it’s damn easy to do things you’d never choose to do otherwise. That’s not consent. No matter how hard he insists he would do it again."

She gave a small, bitter smile, but there was little joy in it.

"John is my friend," she said, her voice thick with unspoken emotion. "He’s not a victim. But I’m afraid he might be held together with cigarettes and spite... and not much else."

 She seemed to deflate before them.

"Now you know," she whispered "I don’t push. I don’t think you should either. Just... keep it in the back of your head for next time. Offer support when you can."

"That's what I do"

Notes:

There's a lot of specific incidents referenced here but the explanation is the same:

Vertigo is a comic book imprint for adults. The things that happen in Vertigo comics have adult consequences. In Hellblazer, but particularly the first 40 issues, world ending problems are often solved by sex. This was originally supposed to be separate from main DC continuity but has been merged via reboot and the Justice League is just now finding out.

Starting with Swampthing #65, Alec Holland was presumed dead by the parliament of trees in 1988, so they created a new nacient unborn elemental called the sprout. When Swathing came back there was a push to destroy the sprout because having two elemental avatars of the Green was threatening reality. Both John Constantine and Alec Holland simultaneously came up with the solution of using a human body to place the sprout in his girlfriend, Abby Arcane. John was on board with the plan but Alec DIDN"T ASK. He also didn't ask Abby, who had previous traumatic experience with men wearing other men to have sex with her.

Epiphany Greaves is the daughter of London Mobster Terry Greaves and supported his criminal empire with alchemical 'drugs' before he died. In between diet pills and aphrodisiacs she cracked the secret to very very convincing love potions. It was never confirmed in canon that she was dosing John but they did get married very suddenly towards the end of the original Hellblazer run.

Chapter 3: Digital footprint

Summary:

In which Ritchie Simpson has a few things to say on the subject of John Constantine.

John Constantine barely tolerated space.

It was nearly impossible to trigger a Synchronicity Wave aboard the Watchtower. Everything about the space station screamed that it was a special place, filled with special people, literally above reach and unreachable.

Disconnected.

That was part of why he leaned more heavily on glowing spell arrays and demonic power since joining the Justice League. This place was all science and glass—not something he outright hated, but rather someplace that seemed to hate him.

One of the most powerful psychics on the planet had just resorted to calling him on a phone because a few miles of vacuum convinced her he might be dead. It was the opposite of a soft place. Constantine was used to shadows that cooperated. On a good day, he could lose himself in a city and end up anywhere in the world. Sure, he usually ended up somewhere awful—but that was just his life.

He’d kept busy over the past few months avoiding Epiphany. Merc’s call had shaken him.

He ran his finger around the scars circling his left thumb. He’d cut it off during a fight only to cash in a favor to regrow it when 'Piffy didn’t like what he'd done. The thumb was fine but he wasn't sure he would have bothered if the stump hadn't made her so upset. Those scars were the closest thing he kept to a wedding ring.

He should turn back.

Wonder Woman was right there. She heard everything. Most of the people he could question about a disturbance in reality were already in the Justice League or Justice League Dark. He wasn't doing himself any favors by running off half-cocked.

He should go back, be a team player. But that would mean answering questions, listening to whatever Zee was saying about him.

Seeing that look in their eyes.

Fuck that.

He still knew a few people who weren’t dead.

Swiping his hand across the wall console, he activated the zeta-beam connection. No point choosing a direction when you didn’t know where you needed to be.

The ground was paved, the air pungent as he walked through. People, promises— a smell like an affront to God. A real place, he thought. A city. The sign for Gotham Public Library loomed a hundred feet away. Disappointment coiled in his gut. A city that hated him almost as much as the Watchtower.

Merc had mentioned a library, hadn’t she? Most libraries had soft places, spots where you could get lost in the stacks and end up anywhere. He could probably reach her through here; ask more questions, get fewer answers. He frowned, he was searching for her shining white conspiracy. Gotham clung to conspiracies and curses like cultural touchstones—points of civic pride.

His old contacts in the Masons were dead. Most people who'd helped him were dead. 

Conspiracy theorists today always seemed to be digital. He needed a digital contact. A dead man's name sprang to mind.

It was a long shot but dead didn’t necessarily mean gone.

Inside, Constantine snagged a temporary library ID and found a public computer. He’d never attempted a summoning quite like this. Computers weren’t his thing, but he wasn't hopeless. In theory it shouldn't be too hard. It wasn't even really magic. He just needed to be obnoxious.

For half an hour, Constantine hunched over the screen, being himself as loudly as he could.

---

Barbara Gordon was doing her best to be Oracle again.

She knew she shouldn’t complain—she was one of the best at what she did. The best, if you asked Batman. But Oracle didn’t fly, didn’t punch enemies, didn’t laugh in their faces. Oracle wasn’t Batgirl. She had handed Oracle off to Gus.

Gus had died.

Barbara could fly again, but she would never save as many lives on a rooftop as she could from her chair. That reality hurt almost as much now as it had the first time. Oracle was tired.

John Constantine was not a subtle man. She had eyes on him the moment his zeta-beam notification crossed her screen. He was using an open library network, tripping over cookies and practically begging for attention. He’d been shopping—cigarettes, whiskey, and exotic whole spices usually sold preprocessed. He bookmarked map locations including a burnt out club in Newcastle, a hotel-casino in North Yorkshire, and a former cereal factory in London. He'd inquired about Mucous Membrane mech on eBay, a first edition of White Stains on Craigslist and an art piece on Etsy made of real human bone.

She was barely paying attention when, after half an hour, he received a Digitronix Direct Message:

St0p: Are you there, Alice? It’s me, Bob.

JonnyConjob: Weren’t you the one in the rabbit hole, Ritch?

St0p: Not enough to kill me? You’ve got to dox me too?

JonnyConjob: Dox?

St0p: We’ve got Eve tagging along.

JonnyConjob: ???

St0p: My God, you’re bad at this. We've got an eavesdropper. Surprised half the internet didn’t hear you stomping around trying to get my attention.

JonnyConjob: About that—you are Ritchie Simpson, right? You didn’t look so good last time I saw you.

St0p: I was dead. Again. Because of you. Again. I’m a copy of a copy. I keep busy and try not to think about the philosophy involved.

JonnyConjob: Busy?

St0p: I teach, moderate, hunt and hide. I’m far from the only ghost in the machine. I try not to be noticed. That ends today, by the way—you absolute ass.

JonnyConjob: Eavesdropper Eve?

St0p: It’s not that I don’t trust her, but the student surpassed the master long ago. I’m outdated and running on Pascal. She could kill me without knowing I was alive.

JonnyConjob: Another ghost like you?

St0p: Not full digital. The Oracle is just talented. What do you want, Johnny?

JonnyConjob: I’m looking for a cover-up. A government’s mucking about with reality. Heard anything?

St0p: Might have. What’s in it for me?

JonnyConjob: Same as last time.

St0p: Last time I died.

JonnyConjob: Clearly not.

St0p: Fine. Last time I learned valuable lessons about the illusion of persistent consciousness and the compression limits of the human soul. I went to Hell. I’m not doing it twice.The wetware upgrade isn’t worth the risk.

St0p: ( · · · )

St0p: I want to be remembered. I want Venus of the Hard Sell.

JonnyConjob: It doesn’t exist anymore.

St0p: It could. You exist. That’s my price.

JonnyConjob: ( · · · )

JonnyConjob: Might take me awhile but I can get it to you. What’ve you got?

St0p: Link: U.S.C. § 5863 (202X)

There was a long pause as John read the link. Barbara wasn't ready to trust a link from St0p no matter how familiar the handle was, but the file name was an easily searchable piece of US legislation. By the time John responded, she was already softly swearing.

JonnyConjob: America has government-sanctioned necromancy? How did they pass this?

St0p: Luthor administration. Big Blue pulled a resurrection. Someone on the JL team dropped the ball. I bet they feel real stupid right now.

She had. She did. Fuck. There had to be more to this.

JonnyConjob: There has to be more to this. Did no one notice the brute squad?

St0p: OPM paper trail says they’re based out of a town called Amity Park. That's as close as I get.

JonnyConjob: ???

St0p: I can pinpoint the hole in digital space, but it could be anywhere IRL. The city has a living firewall.

JonnyConjob: Aren’t you a living virus? You literally broke through a firewall set up by angels.

St0p: God had crap cybersecurity in the ‘80s. 

St0p: I told you, I’m running Pascal. Thats the digital equivalent of elderly and infirm. This is someone new—someone better. Someone in the system. Someone like Cyborg. Someone like Brainiac.

Barbara briefly imagined the look on Cyborg’s face if she told him he was better at IT than God. On consideration, he probably already knew.

St0p: The best way into their network will be a physical attack.

JonnyConjob: You want me to go to the place you can’t find and what? Make them stop?

St0p: That’s on you. The legislation includes a ‘take limit’ of 50,000 specimens. Whatever they’re chasing— demons, ghosts, lemurians—they seem certain they can catch them and probably already have. So yes. You’re the Laughing Magician. Go make them stop.

JonnyConjob: Since when do you care about my titles?

St0p: Since when do you not?

JonnyConjob: Always. That's the point. It's like being the patron saint of 'I don't give a fuck.'

St0p: Incredible to think that you learned to type on a typewriter. Kids these days have acronyms for that sort of thing.

JonnyConjob:  FU mate.

JonnyConjob: Anything else I can do for you? Are you good in there?

St0p: Lol. I’m the internet. I hunt baby Brainiac subroutines in my spare time. It's a high stakes game of whack-a-mole that will probably get me killed eventually but it's very fulfilling. Swing by r/mucousmembrane with my payment. Stick around and chat awhile. Nostalgia keeps me sane.

JonnyConjob: I will. I promise.

St0p: Our fans are shitheads. You’re going to love them.

St0p has left the chat.

Oracle sat in the light of her screen and debated the etiquette of how long was polite to wait after a digital entity broke contract before starting a research project to learn more. It seemed rude to investigate while he was still watching.

Ritchard Simpson of Mucus Membrane.

When she was starting out, a hacker using a stop sign as a calling card had guided her to tools and resources. Not quite a mentor, but someone helpful. Finding out he was dead— had always been dead— was disconcerting.

He wants to be remembered?

She could do that.

Notes:

Ritchie Simpson was in a punk band with John Constantine in the 1970s.

The band "Mucus Membrane" broke up over an incident at "a burnt out club in Newcastle" after which John spent time in the Ravens Scar psychiatric facility before it was renovated into "a hotel-casino in North Yorkshire". When John saw Ritchie again it was at "a former cereal factory in London". White Stains is a real book of real bad poetry really published by Alistair Crowley. It's about cum.

Ritchie figured out how to merge magic with technology to upload his consciousness onto the internet and John immediately used this to try to kill a demon by luring it past a "firewall set up by angels". Ritchie fried in the process. An iteration of Ritchie later took over a demons body in a failed attempt to upload himself into a human body. The resulting hybrid and was retrieved by agents of hell to be trained to be a better demon. St0p is afraid of the copy of himself that went to hell. He thinks Digital Demon Ritchie is coming back and that's not a fight he can win on his own. The more people like Oracle he can put in the world, the safer we will all be.
Alice Bob and Eve are computer security terms used in describing network interactions.
Mentioned previous chapter but again, this Constantine looks 30ish but is 72 years old.
There was a 'hacker mafia' member represented by a stopsign in several early Birds of Prey stories but I can't seem to find the right issue. This loose entity of hackers mentored Oracle.

Chapter 4: Between Points

Summary:

In which Poison Ivy has a few things to say on the subject of John Constantine

John stepped out of the library into Gotham’s rain-slick streets, trusting synchronicity to guide his path.

His feet carried him to a loading van parked behind the building, where a frazzled delivery driver struggled to unload new stock. John observed the rhythm of the man's back-and-forth between the van and the dock before casually stepping in to help. Grabbing a dolly, he began moving pallets.

Either the driver was too exhausted to care, or Gotham had recalibrated his hazard analysis, because he didn't protest the stranger’s sudden involvement. Several sweaty minutes of silent labor passed before the driver finally acknowledged him.

"Thanks. But what's your angle, man?"

John offered a crooked grin. "No angle. Just need a lift. Figured I’d earn my way.

The man gave Constantine an appraising look. "Not a Gothamite?"

"Nah. No offense to Lady Gotham, but I'm skint and I'd rather see the tail end of this city. No destination in mind—just as far as you feel."

The driver looked out at the rain, considering. "I can't take you far. This ain't a long haul, just a local run east of town. Help me finish here, and I'll drop you past some rougher spots."

"Works for me. Anything helps. I’m sure your cab’s drier than the street and more reliable than the trolley."

The ride was quiet, filled only with the pattern of rain on windows and the occasional flash of murky streetlights. Not awkward, but John was sure he'd pushed the man out of his comfort zone. The radio remained off. No music no chatter. Didn’t much matter. He was heading to Amity—any direction was progress.

The truck rumbled to a stop near a security gate. "End of the line," the driver said. "Bus stop's two blocks that way."

Constantine hopped down from the cab with a nod and a lazy wave. He waited for the gate to rattle shut before turning to scan the area. Across the street, a row of warehouses stretched along the bay, dimly lit and brooding under the night sky. A nearby bridge arched over dark waters toward...

Arkham.

That tracked.

He could work with Arkham.

The bridge didn’t have a sidewalk, but it was late and there wasn’t traffic. He supposed no one was really expected to walk to the most infamous mental institution on the eastern seaboard.

Arkham wasn’t Ravenscar — in some ways it was worse. Like Ravenscar, it had magic in its bones—a place of power. Arkham capped a supernatural well of energy that regularly bubbled up and leaked into the various cursus around town. Anyone could feel it, even if they didn’t know what it was. The energy was so potent that a graffiti artist had opened a portal to hell here a few years ago. It must have been laughably easy—Doodlebug was just above Kite Man when it came to the mystic arts.

Constantine carefully avoided the front door. The people who spent time here tended to be unstable and obsessive. It didn’t much matter whether they were patients or not — the place got to them.

With only a partial idea of a plan, he dodged security, forced a side door, and wandered the hushed halls, waiting for inspiration to strike. He was close but something wasn't quite right yet.

He passed unnoticed through halls filled with some of the more infamous criminals the city had to offer before spotting a familiar face.

Pamela Isley—Poison Ivy—was slouched against the plexiglass exterior of her cell, half-asleep. Isolation and lack of sunlight had taken their toll. She looked like a sad potted plant grown rootbound and weary. Her jumper had a number on it, somehow implying that it would be possible to forget who the only green woman in the building was without one.

It would hardly take a moment to chat and it was too good an opportunity to miss. John stopped and padded through the spell components and detritus in his pockets before hitting paydirt—technically, grave dirt, but the little ziploc bag was exactly what he needed. He bent and held it near level with her face against the glass, shaking it until Ivy’s eyes snapped open.

"Ivy," he said, "I’m just passing through, but I’ve got questions I've been meaning to ask. Willing to trade?"

She eyed the dirt hungrily. "Ask."

"How’s Tefé these days?"

She sat back and wrinkled her nose. "You think all the plant people know each other?"

"Yes." He enunciated with certainly, "I do. You've all got a taproot to the Green. Even if I'm wrong, I think even the lowest clod of dirt knows The Sprout."

"That must make you the soggy bladderwort who doesn’t know a damned thing."

John smirked despite himself. He actually knew this one. "Bladderwort’s a carnivorous bog plant, 'init? Sticky? Eats mosquitoes? Didn’t know you thought so highly of me, love. But seriously—what’s the story with my little girl?"

"They," she enunciated with irritation, "identify as a plant, not a girl—and certainly not yours."

That stung. Constantine tried to keep the look off his face, but he must not have done a very good job of it because she sighed and softened.

"Leave them alone Constantine. You can't expect kids to be what you want. Tefé needs this. They aren’t just close to the Green—they're close to the Red. People aren’t really supposed to have direct access to either, but thanks to you, Tefé was born embodying both. Imagine how painful it would be to be an overloaded fuse between conflicting aspects of reality. I’m glad they picked a side."

"You’re glad sh-they" He winced and started over,

"You're glad they picked your side. Red and Green are both life. The way I see it, ecosystems need both plants and animals. Picking ‘Green’ as an identity might help now, but if they want balance, they’ll need to accept all of themselves. They need support."

"They do, but not from you. They’ve found it all on their own. Teamed up with Volcana and Terra. Not that Terra—good kids. Call themselves Natural Disasters. Made a cozy little found family, with a side of eco-terrorism and mischief."

"Geomancers?" John chuckled faintly. "Coming at the problem sideways could work. I like it. Sounds like a fun time."

"They won't need to shoulder the planet's problems alone much longer," Ivy added cryptically.

"You planning to halt humanity’s rampant resource consumption on a global scale sometime soon?"

"Always. I serve the Green. But that’s not what I meant. There was movement in the undergrowth about six months ago. Something tried to bypass the Parliament entirely and choose a new living avatar. Something strong. Felt a lot like when Tefé was conceived. Keep your eyes open."

"You ah, felt the conception?"

"Yes. We all did. Even the lowest clod of dirt" she shot back his words from before.

The Laughing Magician laughed, high and cold, anxious about things he thought he'd gotten over. "Glad someone felt it because, I sure as shit didn’t."

Ivy's eyes grew wide "I didn’t mean —"

"Thanks, Ives." He cut the topic off, fumbling the bag of dirt. 

For one terrible moment she thought he was offended and wasn't going to hand it over but he jambed it into the food slot eventually.

Constantine hesitated before leaving. "Did they bring in King Shark when they nicked you?"

"Yes, but he isn’t here. I target CEOs, so I must be insane enough for Arkham. He’s a shark, so he must be sane enough for Belle Reve. Heard his wife got him extradited this time."

He sighed wistfully "He's probably a thousand miles out to sea eating shrimp off a sexy octopus and complaining about the lack of Internet."

Constantine pulled a packet of mustard seed from his pocket. "I’m heading out of town but, I err, lost my phone. Eye-of-Newt for permission to swing by your place to see if he's around when I get back?"

Ivy eyed the seeds. The soil would help her orchestrate an escape attempt, but it could take a few days. The seeds would get her home tonight.

As much as she wanted it, Constantine had a reputation. Blanket permission to enter her place was a slippery slope. Then again, he didn't exactly have to ask and would probably show up anyway if she refused.

"Don’t smoke in the house. Don’t insult the plants. Don’t fuck on my couch.” She listed. “I’ll turn your cigarettes to aconitum if you hurt my friends."

"Fair enough" He slipped the mustard through the slot alongside the dirt and sauntered away down the hall. A few minutes later the sounds of shattering plexiglass mingled with security klaxons behind him.

That had been dumb he thought. Dumb to stop. Dumb to ask. Dumb to assume he might have just one kid who wanted him around. Dumb to reveal even a little bit of how much he missed Nanaue.

He needed to be in the moment. 

Needed to focus on where he was. 

He was in a place that used science and medicine as an excuse for experimentation and torture. 

A place full of dangerously hyper-focused people that had been dehumanized by an institution. 

A place that had a partially deconstructed portal to hell in the basement. 

The klaxons were joined by the sounds of boots on tile like puzzle pieces clicking into place. 

A place currently experiencing a break out.

He skidded to a side hall to avoid the orderlies. A one armed man with a radio spotted him and peeled off in pursuit. 

Constantine turned, focused a little bit more magic into the feeling of his feet against the ground, turned again, dashed down a flight of stairs, and nearly ran head first into an open door.

The klaxons were a slightly different pitch. This hall was a brighter tint of clinical white.

The sign on the door read:

Ghost Investigation Ward: Operating Theater B.

Finally. 

He wasn't in Arkham anymore.

Notes:

This is now a Harley Quinn animated series crossover too? I know I was already playing fast and loose with the various DC cannons but this feels right. After everything Zee said in ch. 2, I want this to be a world where Tefé has friends and John has a boyfriend who cares.

Chapter 5: The shiny place

Summary:

In which Agent K has a few things to say on the subject of John Constantine.

Ghost Investigation Ward: Operating Theater B turned out an oppressively bright clean-room that smelled of mysticaly concentrated death.

A pristine white curtain stretched across the back wall.

A surgical tray lay abandoned in haste, its metal tools still glinting.

A red rock sat hooked up to wires and gauges embedded in the wall, thrumming with power, surrounded by a tangle of glowing green tubes.

John was hit with a wave of forgotten memories as he recognized the rock. He was suddenly certain he’d held one just like it as a child—before the magic, before Newcastle, before his demonic bargaining.

Back then he’d believed in that rock. Eventually, like so many adults, he’d put away childish things, stopped believing. He’d convinced himself it was just a chunk of jasper he’d found under some old cat bones near the quarry. Convinced himself the anger radiating off it had been inside him all along.

Here?

In this place?

He wasn’t convinced now. He remembered the name he’d given it back then: 

The Dead Boy’s Heart

Now, just like back then, he wrenched it from its cage. This time, he tucked it into an inner pocket, safe and secure. This time, no one was going to steal it off him.

It wasn’t the same rock. He knew the moment his fingers brushed its surface. It wasn’t angry. It was just… confused? That seemed wrong. Everything about this seemed wrong.

Constantine scanned the room, needing to know more. No sigils or runes, just wires and some kind of storage pack for the strange green energy goo in the tubes.

He fixated on the curtain at the back of the room.

He pulled it aside.

And there she was.

That—that was Astra.

Not Astra.

Astra.

NOT ASTRA.

The girl laid out on the surgical table was the right age, the right size. Her silver hair was just a touch cooler than Astra’s platinum blonde had been. Something familiar about the chin.

This wasn’t her. It couldn’t be. He’d played a high-stakes game of find-the-lady and gotten her out. For fifteen years she hadn’t lost faith, and he hadn’t stopped trying. And he’d done it. One of the best tricks he'd ever pulled. For one brief, shining moment, there had been no children in hell.

Except this? Whatever this was?

It wasn't hell but it came damn close.

She'd been nearly split in half vertically. A spreader was locked in place across her ribs and another on her pelvis. Her skin was pinned back wide, her organs hideously exposed, glowing a sickly green that radiated an aura of concentrated death—the same death he’d smelled when he entered the room. Her limbs were strapped down, her face streaked with tears.

Her green heart beat before his eyes.

She flickered as he took her in—clearly a supernatural creature. Clearly not a ghost. Clearly unstable.

Clearly a little girl in pain.

“I’m sorry, love. I’m sorry. I’m going to get you out. It’s going to be okay.”

Why did he have to say something stupid like that? Even mundane first responders knew not to make promises they couldn’t keep.

What could he do?

He reached for his power and—nothing.

Empty.

He shouldn’t be empty. He hadn’t portaled here. He’d leaned on coincidence— taken the mystically easier route. Nothing direct, nothing overt. The biggest move he’d made all day was flinging a bloody cell phone. He shouldn’t be tapped.

“Come on,” he hissed, twisting his fingers in desperation. Even the most basic protective ward failed in his hands. “Just a bloody spark!”

This was a nightmare. Some sort of suppression field he should have noticed sooner. Sodding scientists mucking about.

Dissecting children.

It couldn’t be all magic, he pushed through his panic. He’d fucking walked here. His pockets were still suspiciously deep so pre-existing enchantments were active. What about thoughts? He tried psychically activating the mental key to the House of Mystery and looked wildly around the room for a door. 

Nothing.

He wasn’t exactly prepared for this. He’d snorted his last reliquary years ago. That feeling— was this Death magic?— maybe grave dirt would—? No. He was out—Crap.

He grabbed a scalpel. He always had the diluted demon’s blood in his veins. No idea what it might do, but for a creature like this, he could be sure it would do something.

The sounds of escape from the hall had been growing louder the whole time, but John had barely noticed. When a sudden racket came from the door, he glanced over his shoulder.

The frantic boy in black and silver looked just like the silver haired girl on the table.

John’s eyes flicked back to the scalpel poised over his wrist. Back to the girl, who had started melting while his head was turned.

He registered the sound of a deep breath behind him— *

A wave of wailing, grief-stricken outrage crashed through the operating theater. It hit Constantine, the equipment, the walls themselves, tearing through the room and dropping portions of the ceiling. A scream with a physical force.

His head cracked against the table. Then nothing.

 

---

 

John woke to the sharp, familiar agony of a boot to the face. He vaguely wished he didn’t know the exact sensation, but this wasn’t his first time. Blinking blearily into the rubble and harsh fluorescent light, he struggled to listen past the tinnitus ringing in his ears.

—we were right behind—

—escaped with the—

—subjec—

The garbled words faded in and out. Listening was too hard.

Feeling, though—feeling was easy. His face stung with an off-center sharpness, like he’d broken something near his nose. His body felt too stiff, too sluggish. 

He was seized his collar, dragged upright. Pain flared anew. Something sharp had pierced his leg. He hadn't noticed from the floor but now it was clear he couldn't stand. Rough hands patted him down, each jarring touch making his broken ribs scream in protest. They were searching his jacket, he realized dimly.

Good luck, he thought, a delirious giggle bubbling up from somewhere deep inside. He gave his arm a weak wave, Nothing up my sleeve, guv’nor.

Blood filled his mouth as he passed out again.

---

 

 

When he came to, it was on his own terms—or as close as it ever got.

He was slumped against the cold surface of a cramped plexiglass cell, the kind that made it impossible to tell whether you were imprisoned for observation or disposal. Not too dissimilar from Arkham really, just a tiny fraction of the size. His toes brushed the back wall. Everything hurt. Time had passed, but he had no sense of how much. Blinking the haze away, he glanced around—and jumped.

Inches from the window, standing at rigid parade rest, was a dark skinned man in a gleaming white suit. He looked down his nose and scrutinized John with a focused stillness that set John’s teeth on edge, like he was examining a bug pinned under glass. Judging by the stiff posture, he hadn’t moved in hours. He didn’t seem inclined to move now.

“S’you ‘posed to be?” John slurred. His tongue felt thick, and he knew he was mumbling. Probably had a concussion, he figured.

“I am Agent K.”

“Thass not a name. Who’re you at home, then?”

“It is the only name I need to deal with you.” The agent sneered, his disdain razor-sharp.

“Strewth. Merc pegged you” John mumbled, grinning faintly. “suit cuts both ways.”

“My uniform facilitates effective ectodecontamination,” Agent K said coldly. “The ecto menace must be stopped.”

“Ecto de—decontamina—what? The green stuff? Tha’s not ecto. Too glo’y.”

Agent K tilted his head, a glint of calculation in his eyes. “Hm. You don’t know what it is, do you?”

Oops. John’s brain sputtered to life. Rule number one of conman wizardry: never let them know what you don’t know. Be the one who knows. Always—even if you're lying.

Especially if you're lying.

“You ‘ave no right to meddle in thin’s ya don’ understand,” he covered. Classic wizard stuff. That’d throw him off.

Agent K’s lips thinned, his composure cracking at the edges. “You,” he said, voice vibrating with barely suppressed rage, “are a messy individual. You bring demonic filth into our borders. You stain this reality and laugh at our God and our values. I know what you are. I’ve read your file, Family Man.”

John flinched at the name, but the agent didn’t notice. He kept going, words filed with hot rage.

“You are a serial killer. A liar. A conman. You sup with devils and do it all with carte blanche from the Justice League. You exist in an extralegal limbo reserved for the privileged unelected few who claim authority over the rest of humanity. I have no right? I serve my country. You have no right. You’ve killed in the name of black magic, and you’ll do it again. Removing you from this reality is the highest service I can offer.”

John swallowed thickly, the metallic taste of blood clinging to his tongue. He pulled himself up as tall as he could and made direct eye contact. He needed to say this clearly.

“I am," he gasped "Not the," he spat the words around his swollen tongue "Family Man.”

Agent K’s expression twisted with contempt. “Is that all you have to say?”

“Pretty sure th’rest of it’s true,” John muttered faintly, his lips quirking upward to reveal bloody teeth despite an ache in his jaw. “Your God 's a joke.”

The agent’s face flushed crimson. “You— You evil scum. You deserve a taste of your own medicine. You deserve to die at the hands of the monsters we hunt here!”

There was a sharp hiss, like a canister venting pressure, and suddenly the silver-haired boy from before appeared, knocking John back down and crumpling over his legs in the cell’s cramped confines. The boy toppled forward, wide-eyed, until they were nearly nose to nose.

John’s head swam, his thoughts sluggish.

Context suggested he ought to be scared.

Mostly, this was just awkward.

Notes:

My favorite thing about crossover is how all the little bits of canon fit together. If something is true in one franchise what does it mean in the other?
Dead Boys Heart is the title of Hellblazer #35.

Family Man was a serial killer who had a whole story arc before being killed by Constantine and not making it to his prearranged American speaking engagement in Sandman.

Chapter 6: Thrice I ask and done

Summary:

In which Danny Phantom has a few things to say on the subject of this guy he just met— but doesn't because it would be rude.

Danny Phantom didn’t know what to make of the man he’d dropped a ceiling on.

When he’d seen him standing over Dani—seen what had been done to her, the scalpel poised in his hand—his reaction had been immediate, impulsive, and involuntary. Like most of his bad decisions, it had made perfect sense at the time.

Now, though?

The shared, claustrophobic space made the cell feel even smaller than the Thermos he’d just left behind. The man was unshaven, blonde, and bleeding into a dirty tan trench coat that reeked of cigarettes. The eye that wasn't half swollen shut was very blue at this distance. Danny couldn’t imagine anyone less likely to work for the clean, orderly cogs of the GIW.

With a wet wheeze, the man started chuckling. His back rested against the clear door as he splutterd “Is… is tha’… foo’steps I hear? Kid, did… did tha’ wanker jus’ leave?”

Danny glanced through the glass over the man’s shoulder and gave a small, hesitant nod.

“He—” The man wheezed. “He jus’ gave a supervillain spe’ch, 'bout evil, shoved ya’ in here, an’ left?”

“I guess? I wasn’t exactly here for that part.”

“Ha! -ow.”

“Are you okay? Your face looks really bad.”

The left side was swollen and red. Raccoonish bruising was blooming under both eyes. He held his jaw at a bit of an angle. The overall effect was not pretty.

“No. I bloody ‘ell ain’t. Broke ribs. Concuss'n. You?”

“Me?”

“You ‘kay?”

“Uh, yeah. I’ve been here for a while, so… not great. And I think I might’ve wasted my best shot at getting out when I attacked you. My— my sister… decorporialized into ectoplasm.” He winced thinking about it “But other than that? Physically fine.”

“s’not ecto.”

“…Um?”

“s’not. Ecto’s runny. Silver. 'vaporates. Dis’ glowy green goo? 's not it.”

That sounded like the kind of thing the occultists at his parents’ conventions would point out before laughing at their 'research.' Danny hesitated. “Who are you?”

“‘s John. Pl’esure.” His words slurred as he spoke.

“Should you be talking?”

“Concussion. ‘Need ta stay awake.” He was hit by a gasping, shuddering coughing fit. “Uh—ribs. Sh’dn’t talk. Your turn. Who er’ you?”

Danny hesitated. 

The older man tapped the back of his head against the plexiglass as if nodding to the retreating footsteps behind him.

“‘gent K? 'e doesn’t think you’re people. Prove ‘im wrong.”

“I’m not human.” It was true. He's never felt less human than he did in this place. Did— did he just kill Dani? Could he have saved her if he hadn't —

Tsk. "My house isn’t ‘uman. s’till people.”

“…Your house is people?”

He nodded. “‘s not talking to me, tho.”

“You have a magic house.”

He vaguely pointed to himself. “Wiz’ard.”

That. That was the most ridiculous— 

“You gonna magic your way out of this box?” The man, John, didn't look like a wizard. He looked like the roadkill in Act 2 of a Tarantino movie.

“Tryn’. Som’thin’s wrong.”

Of course it was.

“Me too. There's a ghost shield. It's a series of ecto-enforced walls. Most of my powers work a little bit, but I can’t cross the barriers or go intangible. The central generator projects a kind of… abjurative dome over everything.”

“Dome? ‘s round?”

Danny nodded.

John grinned self-deprecatingly. “‘s power circle. ‘m a dumb fuckn’ fairy in a circle trap.” he paused for another wet gasp,

“So… who are you?” John tried again.

“I’m a ghost.” He really was. Part of him hadn't ever left his parents basement. He felt dead inside.

“Nah. Know ghosts. s'not you.”

Danny froze in fear. “What makes you so certain?”

John’s lips trembled, and he closed his eyes briefly as if trying to unsee something. “Organs. Yer sister. She— she had—” His whole body shuddered.

Danny tried to move off the man but there just wasn't room. If he could have floated out of the way he would have but he was just so tired. 

Something rigid bumped his leg as John convulsed with painful coughs. The handle of a surgical tool. It was probably a scalpel but Danny couldn’t tell for sure because the rest of the tool was buried several inches in the man’s thigh. He knew enough not to remove it but for the first time, it occurred to him that this man might die here in this box. 

Agent K had left. He knew that the agents were on their own schedule. He'd been abandoned for days in this facility before.

The thought of sitting on top of John while he died was horrible.

The thought of sharing the space with a corpse afterwards— What actually happened when someone died inside a Ghost Shield? Where did they go? Had anyone tested that yet?

Were they testing it now?

“What can I do?”

John glared weakly. “Talk. Distract. Everyone has a story, kid. Th’rice I ask—who are you?”

Danny hesitated, but the floodgates opened the moment he started speaking. Afterward Danny couldn't say why, if it was the fear and stress, the weight of his secrets or the honesty of the question.

He certainly wouldn’t attribute it to ‘a wizard asked three times’ that would be dumb.

The words just spilled out, starting at the beginning:

“—I was just fourteen, my parents built a very strange—”

He explained his weird death, his halfa status, and everything that had followed.

“—I had snow white hair and—” 

He kept going, the story spilling out in disjointed but relentless waves.

“—my sister heard the whole—”

From the weaker ghosts he first met,

“—Lunch Lady was just mad about—”

To the mounting pressure,

“—we needed to find a pumpkin—”

And raising stakes,

“—he took the whole town—”

His family’s indifference,

“—Vlad was standing right there—”

His friends’ jealousy,

“—she also said, ‘I wish—’”

Danny didn’t hold anything back. The GIW really must have gone home for the night because it felt like he talked for hours uninterrupted, unspooling every memory, every battle, every failure and victory.

John was quiet through most of it, his expression oscillating between vague curiosity and barely concealed pain. Occasionally, he made a comment or asked a question, but it was clear he probably missed a lot— over the hours the swelling in his face went down, and his speech grew clearer, but his body still trembled if he moved.

Once he'd broken into a muttered litany of, “—bleed-me-the-bleeding-bloody-bleed” but didn't elaborate.

By the time Danny got to the ghosts he fought at the end of his junior year, he felt like he was baring a piece of himself he hadn’t even known he’d been holding onto. The elemental power of those spirits, their sheer terrifying presence—it had intimidated him in ways he hadn’t admitted until now.

John, though? John just laughed.

“‘Dream Ghost,’ was it? That’s copyright infringement, that is. Seems like lots of these ‘Ancients’ of yours fancy themselves the Endless. The real Morpheus’d mop the floor with 'em.”

“You’ve met the Greek god of sleep?” Danny asked. He knew Pandora, so it made sense for the other people from Greek mythology to be around.

“Sure, sure. He's Dream” John said with a wave of his hand. “Bastard reneged on a favor. Promised me quiet dreams, but there were too many bloody loopholes. Prophetic visions, hauntings, forced astral projection… apparently those don’t count as real nightmares. Had a rough few years, and by the time I could actually enjoy the reward without interruptions, he’d up an’ died. Third oldest Endless my arse. When the normal nightmares started again I tried to bill his estate, but they wouldn’t answer.”

Danny couldn’t help but grin at the absurdity of trying to send an invoice to be paid in dreams. It lightened the mood for a moment before he pushed on, wrapping up his story.

“The next school year started, and I quietly emancipated myself on my eighteenth birthday last September. I moved in with Jazz across town. She’s doing a year of college online so she can keep an eye on me, but after that, we agreed we’d go to separate schools. I planned to finish senior year of high school with Sam and Tucker, but– I was too slow. The GIW caught me. They’ve gotten better. I was shocked by how many ghosts I recognized in here. Seems like just about everyone I've ever met. It took a few weeks, but after Pariah, everyone listens to me. I was able to organize a prison break using the bad luck around Johnny 13’s shadow. He got out. Most of them got out. I could’ve gone too, but I heard they had Dani. I couldn’t leave her. She died because of me.”

He was leaving a lot out. It had been easier to admit his own dark timeline than to talk about the time he'd spent here.

John’s expression darkened. “She died because of them.”

Danny opened his mouth to argue but stopped when John fished into his pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.

“Dude, could you not?”

John raised an eyebrow. “What do you care? You haven’t been breathing. It’s my first fag in—” He squinted, doing the math. “Twentyish hours? I deserve this."

“She died because they were cruel” he continued “and because I was slow. This one’s not on you.”

Danny disagreed but said nothing as John lit the cigarette and took a deep, slow drag.

Danny frowned. “How do you even have a lighter?”

John smirked. “My pockets don't like to be searched. They left the jacket. Don’t know half the shit I’ve got in here.”

Danny gave the cigarette another disapproving glance, but John didn’t seem to care. He took another drag, the ember glowing briefly before another coughing fit wracked his frame. He curled over, clutching his ribs protectively.

“My mom says smoking will kill you,” Danny said flatly.

“She’s not wrong,” John rasped.

Danny hesitated, the words caught in his throat. “I… wonder if she’s noticed I’m gone yet.”

John jerked his head up, blinking as though he might have misheard. “You said you’ve been here for weeks.”

Danny shrugged, the motion small, as if it might hide his embarrassment and make him vanish in the cramped space. “Yeah? She didn’t exactly comment when I moved out, either. I don’t see them much between the lab and school, so I wouldn’t be surprised if—”

“Wouldn’t be surprised. Wouldn’t mind.” John’s tone hardened. “That’s—wait.” He narrowed his eyes, the cigarette pausing on its way back to his lips.

“You died. You were laid out on an altar as the sacrificial component to puncture a hole in reality.”

That was a really strange way to put it, “I wouldn’t say—”

“And you don’t care,” John interrupted. “You just sat there on my knees, cool as a cucumber, explaining your own death, and you don’t care. You’ve forgiven them. If they caught you, tortured you—what? You’d say they didn’t understand? That they’re your parents, and then you’d forgive them. Because they are Family. Even if they kill you. And kill you. And kill you again. Molecule by molecule.”

“What?” Danny blinked, startled by the sudden intensity.

“Give me your hand!” John snapped.

“Um—”

“I’ve been doing this all wrong.” Without waiting for permission, John snatched Danny’s hand, ignoring the teen’s instinctive flinch. Then, to Danny’s shock and horror, John spat blood into his palm.

“Say it!” John demanded, his grip iron-tight.

“What?” Danny stared, torn between confusion and disgust.

“Say you forgive it. Forgive your own death!”

“I forgive my own death?” Danny repeated, uncertain and more than a little freaked out. The blood on his hand tingled, sharp and electric.

John pressed their joined hands against the wall, smearing a bloody streak. “Come on, you rotten pile of timber,” he muttered under his breath, then, louder, “He’s fucking perfect.”

“What—?” Danny started, but John’s grin cut him off.

"Sh-shhh, it's a secret. 

The wizard held his hand steady against the wall and whispered “Com'on please, please don't make this about me—”

Danny’s pulse pounded in his ears as he felt the texture beneath his fingers shift, ripple, and then solidify into something entirely new.

 

 

And then there was a door.

 

Notes:

Let me know how I'm doing in the comments. I know written speech impediment can be confusing and I hope it doesn't detract too much from your reading experience.

Sources include almost the entirety of the Danny Phantom series:

Danny is 18. His birthday is in September making him the product of his parents make-up sex after the yearly Christmas argument.
His parents built a portal to the Ghost Zone summer before freshman year in 2022, when he was still 'just 14' but he was 15 for most of season 1 and each season closely corresponds to a new year of school. It's currently winter of senior year. Claw of the Wild took place summer 2025.

D-stabilized, Phantom Planet and Glitch in Time haven't happened and probably never will because John Constantine is a chaotic gremlin.
Dark Dan is still in a Fenton Thermos time-out.

Chapter 7: The keys to the door

Summary:

In which John Constantine has a few things to say on the subject of sentient Houses

John Constantine felt an irrational wave of relief as the door came into view.

He tried to tamp down his expectations. This was an awkward place for a door to appear and he was playing fast and loose with closely kept secrets. The house had every right to be peeved with him. He hadn't explained a damn thing so maybe it wouldn't be too offended? He was still the only one who knew how the key worked and he intended to keep it that way until he got some indication that they were actually welcome.

“This is your house?” Danny half-dragged him through the door.

“No.” Constantine’s eyes darted around the Edwardian foyer with as much fascination as Danny’s. “I’ve never been here, only heard about it. My house is the House of Mystery. This is the House of Secrets.”

A breeze stirred through the open hall, carrying the faint sound of rustling paper. A pamphlet, flew in and smacked Danny square in the face, startling a squeak out of him.

“You should read that,” Constantine said.

“Because the house is… people?”

“Yeah. The Houses usually use pronouns it/it's because they identify as architecture but they're definitely people. What’s it saying?”

Danny squinted at the crumpled pamphlet in his hands. “Thomas Wayne Memorial Clinic: Top Five Things You Should Know About Concussions?”

Constantine raised an eyebrow. “Go on.”

“Uh… it says it’s good to sleep after a head injury. People with cranial trauma shouldn’t think too hard or try to solve complex puzzles. Loss of consciousness, slurred speech, and bruising around the eyes and ears are, like, really bad. There's a recovery schedule for the next three weeks that says you should avoid looking at screens and strenuous athletic activities like sports, ballet, gymnastics or late night parkour.”

Constantine’s doubts about whether or not they were welcome evaporated. “Aw, look at that. Someone cares.”

“So… you could’ve been sleeping this whole time, and I might’ve actually made things worse by keeping you awake?” Danny’s voice wavered.

“Nah. Got some interesting medical history the house doesn’t know about. Should be fine. The bastards didn’t even break my nose.”

Just the zygomatic bone next to my nose, which hurts more and takes longer to heal, John thought grimly.

“Don’t worry, kid. The slurring’s mostly from loose teeth and a bitten tongue." He lied, "I heal fast. Not much to do but wait.”

He leaned heavily on Danny's smaller shoulder and stumbled toward a pair of armchairs by a crackling entryway fire— that he was fairly sure had been farther away a moment ago. “Here. Put me down.”

Constantine slumped into the chair, and after a moment, pulled a glowing yellow spell array into the air before him. His magic was working again, at least.

The lines and sigils twisted into the rough approximation of a human body, burning orange streaked with darker red as the diagnostic spell reflected his injuries: head, chest, and leg. His chakras looked out of line but it had been a long fucking day and it was expected.

“Is that you?” Danny’s eyes were wide, shining with awe at the overt use of magic. It struck Constantine that the kid might not have actually believed he was a wizard until this moment.  

John just hissed through his teeth. “Waste of time. Nothing I didn’t already know. Cracked bones, bruises… nothing to do but hold ’em still and sleep it off.”  

He felt like a bit of a whiny prat, honestly. Danny had been fussing like John might keel over and die any second. This wasn’t even close to the worst hell had thrown at him.  

His eyes drifted to the scalpel embedded above his right knee, the handle jutting awkwardly out of his leg at hand hight. He must’ve stabbed himself when Danny had wailed earlier. Bloody embarrassing.  

“You’ve got intangibility, yeah? Think you can phase this thing out of me? It’s not sitting on anything important now, but that might change on the way out.”  

Danny hesitated. “Okay… if you’re sure.” He knelt on the carpet next to the chair, glancing nervously at the wound. “Count of three. One, two, thr—”  

“Wait.” John nodded toward the side table that hadn’t been there a moment ago. A neat row of supplies had materialized: several pads of gauze, a roll of athletic tape, a bottle of pills, and a container of rubbing alcohol.

“Be ready to apply pressure right after. And do my trousers first. You’ve got too much faith in how clean they are.”  

Danny flushed. “But—”  

John sighed in exasperation. “Just yank ’em off. Most people would use trauma shears. I’m fine in my skivvies, kid. Could use the assist, though.”  

Danny inhaled sharply—an odd, deliberate affectation for someone who didn’t need to breathe. The boy pulled the trousers clean off with one hand. With the other hand, he phased the scalpel out of John’s leg and then pressed gauze firmly against the wound in a smooth, practiced motion. He'd skipped the antiseptic, but the process was so quick and precise that John couldn’t complain.  

After a few moments of pressure, Danny secured the gauze over the deep wound with the athletic tape, wrapping it snugly around his pale, scrawny leg.  

John offered a lopsided grin. “Ten out of ten. You’re welcome to pull my clothes off anytime.”  

The words slipped out before his brain could catch up. That had to be the fatigue talking—innuendo as self-defense. He cringed inwardly. He's a bloody kid.

Danny looked a few years younger than he claimed to be but thanks to some truly unclean living John was at least twice as old as he seemed. His brain briefly scrambled to do the math on the real numbers but the equation wouldn't cooperate.

Merc was right. He needed therapy.

Constantine reached for the bottle of pills.

“You’re really going to take unmarked medication from a magic house you’ve never met?” Danny asked, eyebrows raised.

“This house has good references,” Constantine replied dryly. The bottle contained just two pills conveniently preventing anything approximating overdose. His hands shook as he popped them into his mouth and swallowed.

“It’s like a lair? Do you know the person who lives here?” Danny asked.

“Pretty sure it’s you who lives here. Congratulations, Casper—it’s a house!”

“What?!”

“Or at least you’re being interviewed for the position.”

“What position?”

“Caretaker of the House of Secrets.”

Constantine’s hand drifted toward a fifth of whiskey that had conveniently appeared on the table. There was a glass. He ignored it.

“Uh… should you be drinking? That’s—you know that’s worse, right? Pills, booze, and a concussion?”

“If the house wanted me dead, I’d already be dead. I'm a guest and I'm not going to  be disrespectful and refuse anything it offers. Our mutual acquaintance apparently gave me a glowing recommendation too because this is good stuff.”

“And that acquaintance would be…?”

“The House of Mystery.”

“Your lair recommended this lair?”

“They like to be neighbors. They gossip. I think they might be siblings or something. The original owners left and they’ve been bouncing around ever since, looking for purpose. Reinventing themselves. Mystery tried being a pub for a while. I think it was trying too hard to cheer me up.” He took a long pull from the whiskey.

“The names are literal,” Constantine continued. “There are dangerous artifacts lying around—mysteries and secrets from all over time and space. You opened the door so it’s your house for now, but you’re not the first owner. Be respectful. Don’t force any locks. The house will show you where you’re allowed to go.”

Danny’s voice dropped. “Why me? Why did it show up after you said all that stuff about my parents? Why do the houses care about how I died?” He glanced uneasily at the shifting shadows along the walls. “What do they want?”

“Stories,” Constantine said. “They’re made of stories—places that collect stories for the sake of stories. They charge rent in stories told. Near as I can tell, the original owners were stories themselves. Two big, important ones you’ve definitely heard of. Now that they’re gone, the houses look for people who fit the spaces they left behind.”

“Who were they?”

Constantine tensed. The pills were nice, they dulled his physical pain, but the question stirred a deeper ache—shame heavier than any of today’s injuries. They're not who anyone should want to be, he thought.

The kid’s green eyes were wide with curiosity. John looked around the room, giving the house one last chance to protest.

Nothing changed.

“They were Cain and Abel.”

Danny’s face twisted through confusion, indignation, and disgust before settling into something softer. Something sad.

“I’m the victim.” he whispered, his voice small.

“Could be worse,” Constantine said, matching the tone and layering in decades of weariness. “At least you’re not The Murderer.”

Danny flinched, scrambling back to put space between himself and the man he barely knew. His voice squeaked as realization dawned. “Are… are you going to kill me?”

Constantine raised an eyebrow and let the question hang in the air before answering, “Would you care? You don't seem to think it would change you all that much.”

Danny didn’t look even slightly relieved.

“I’m not going to kill you,” Constantine added setting the bottle down. “But I might get you killed. People die around me all the time. It’s usually my fault. That’s not what Mystery likes about me.”

“Then what?”

Constantine winced. “I killed my brother,” he admitted, voice low. “He… he was better than me. Better for the world. Only one of us was getting out of there. I knew. He knew. I killed him to save my own life. Had the chance to undo it. Like you. I went back, and I— I did it again." His voice cracked,

"I’d do it again."

He leaned his head back and closed his eyes in pain, "On the days I don’t regret it, I have no trouble finding the House. That thought is a key. It's more than killing. It's a mindset. I justify his death. I kill him again in my mind, and if I don’t regret it, the House comes to meet me.”

Danny’s eyes widened in horror.

“I’ve never told anyone that,” Constantine said quietly looking down again. “I’m sorry. But I suspect you’re going to need to do something similar if you want to get back here.”

John stared into space, his voice barely above a whisper. “I'm the Caretaker of the House of Mystery but don’t live there. I… I crash on couches. Keep a flat in Brixton sometimes.”

His thumb itched. He ignored it.

He dropped his gaze further and noted that the House had had removed the liquor bottle entirely in favor of filling the glass with a reasonable amount of whiskey when he wasn't looking. 

Phantom broke the silence left in the wake of his revelation with another question.

“Who are you, John? Really. I only got your first name.”

“Hm?”

The fire crackled, warmth seeping into John’s battered body. He’d passed what he’d assumed was the danger zone for his concussion—as outdated as that assumption was. It was a little embarrassing that some of his medical knowledge still came from 1970s club kids trying to keep each other safe. He felt safe now. His ribs ached but his breathing was easy.

He felt safe.

“I am John Constantine. Wizard. Petty dabbler in the dark arts. I’m the guy who laughs at the assholes who think they’re in charge.”

Danny frowned. “The GIW aren’t funny. You’re not laughing now.”

John grinned “I don’t know—Agent K seemed pretty convinced he was sending me to my doom. Like you were the death trap in a spy movie or something. That’s hilarious, don’t you think?”

Danny’s reluctant smile felt like a victory, swimming in front of John’s tired eyes. The wizard tipped forward in his chair, the weight of the day and the drugs finally dragging him down.

Danny hesitated, then gently placed a hand on John’s back. When he didn’t protest, Danny pulled the half-naked man into a surprisingly effortless bridal carry and moved him.

There was, perhaps inevitably, a bedroom behind the nearest door.

The bed was soft. In the back of his head John knew this should be the other way around— he got Danny out, he should be the adult. Should be the one offering comfort and—

A cool wave passed through him as Danny phased the shirt, tie, and jacket off his body.

They were gone for only a second before being dropped unceremoniously into a pile on top of him.

The kids hands had spasmed. 

Danny’s power flared, sputtered, and then died entirely. He staggered backward on emaciated legs and half-tripped into a second bed suddenly adjacent to the first. He collapsed on the mattress and didn’t get up again.

Through half-slit eyes, John examined the lump on the bed across from him: Dark hair. Too thin frame. A living body on it's last legs, already starting to resemble the psychic stain it would leave behind. His mind blurred at the edges. As he finally felt himself drift off, one last thought solidified:

That. 

That’s what a real ghost boy looks like.

 

Notes:

The sentient Houses all have their own titles, House of Secrets, House of Mystery, House of Whispers... My interpretation of them comes largely from Sandman but I might throw in House on Ashtree Lane to make the crossover more fun.

A 'House of' title is almost always a horror anthology with the Caretaker serving as a framing device between stories.

Elvira and Phantom Stranger have hosted the House of Mystery.
Zatanna Zatarra, Giovani Zatarra and Rain Harper have all hosted House of Secrets.

These interactions were always temporary. In this story they were just 'paying rent' by sharing stories the same way the 'Pub of Mystery' patrons paid their bar tabs. They went in to the house but never had keys to the door the way Cain, Abel, John and Danny do.

Chapter 8: A restless night

Summary:

In which the House of Secrets denies having anything to say on the subject of John Constantine.

Notes:

*Author has chosen to use Relationships, pairings, orientations: Other Relationships*

Because Houses are people too.

John woke in pain.

The pills were wearing off, and the pressure on his ribs was acute. Half-asleep, he flung his arms and rolled, desperate to find some position of comfort.

His mind wouldn't shut up. The thoughts chased each other back and forth in the night:

The girl. The clone. Dani. Dani who looked like Astra. Astra who summoned the Norfulthing to make the pain stop. Astra who spent 15 years in hell because he summoned something worse by the wrong name. Dani who had been born in agony, fought to survive through it, and died in agony anyway. Astra who was already assaulted and abused by her father enough to call out to demons at the age of 11. Dani who had lived—what? A year? A year and a half?

The world was a bassackwards dogs bollocks of pain and futility. Why couldn't he save even a few of the people right in front of him? She’d known him for all of 30 seconds before she started melting. That had to be some kind of personal record. Astra had made it nearly a day. 

Where did he get off stealing decades from the devil when he couldn’t even stop something like that from happening?

His fingers brushed against something cool, smooth, and steady. 

He pulled the Dead Boy’s Heart from his jacket pocket and clutched it to his bare chest. Curling his naked body around the artifact, he felt its surface pulse faintly, radiating sympathy and concern.

His pain ebbed, and sleep took him once again.

---

Danny woke to a deep ache in his gut, a hollow pain that had long since passed hunger and sunk into the relentless, full-body cramps of starvation. That agony had been following him for weeks. He knew that if he could pull himself together enough to go ghost, he could keep the pain at bay. He couldn’t even remember when he’d started staying Phantom all the time—burning ectoplasm instead of food because they hadn’t been feeding him.

Now he was human again, and there wasn’t enough ecto left to change back, no matter how hard he tried to shift away from the pain. Tears pricked the corners of his eyes as reality settled over him like a weight.

On the bedside table sat a tiny cup of soup and a green gummy shaped vaguely like a ghost. The soup smelled familiar, like something Aunt Alicia might have made him once. The gummy resembled a children’s multivitamin. Beneath them was a storybook—thick cardboard pages that belonged in a nursery, bright cover dulled by age.

Danny’s thin, boney hands trembled as he wrapped them around the cup, lifting it carefully to his lips. He sipped the soup slowly, savoring each small mouthful.

His head swam with John’s words about the house, stories, secrets, and the importance of being respectful. After a moment’s hesitation, he forced down the gummy too. Then he cracked open the book and began to read.

A long time ago, long before the world you know was a speck in space, when everything was young, Death and Dream went walking…

The story was simple, only a dozen cartoonish pages. It was about how Dream gifted the House of Secrets to Abel after he 'met Death.' Abel, lonely in his new home, asked for his brother Cain to join him. There had been a fight in the first few pages— no mention of murder—and the final page promised that they lived 'happily ever after.'

The back of the book was marred with reddish-brown stains—an old bloody handprint, smudged and faded.

Danny stared at it, his fingers brushing the imprint. He suspected that the portion of the story he’d been offered—like the soup—was just enough to sustain him without being overwhelming.

He placed his hand over the bloodstain and thought about forgiveness, family, and dying. Letting the thoughts swirl and tangle in his mind eventually, exhaustion won, and he drifted into an uneasy sleep.

---

Constantine had slept on a rock.

A nice rock, sure, but still— a rock.

He stretched wiry arms and blinked blearily at the ceiling. Something above him was doing a decent imitation of warm afternoon sunlight, spreading across the rough stucco. Whether it was coming through a window from an actual outside world or the house was conjuring it all on its own, he couldn’t say. Either way, it gave him some vague sense of how much time had passed.

Lazily, he shifted the rock to his chest, where it nestled between his scars like it belonged there. That probably should’ve worried him more than it did. The urge to mount the thing on a necklace and never take it off was obviously a trap. He wasn’t falling for it. He just—wasn’t moving right now.

He needed to get his head on straight.

Merc had told him to rescue the boyking. If Danny’s yeti friend was to be believed, he’d done that much. But that was all he’d done. He had no idea what the Ghost Investigation Ward was actually doing to put pressure on reality, let alone if he’d stopped them. Hell— he wasn’t even sure where the facility was, was he? After all that effort to get there, he might not be able to find it again.

He had nothing.

Well. He had Danny.

That kid had some of the strangest shit Constantine had ever encountered running through his veins.

At some point last night, John had stopped bothering to argue that these creatures weren’t ghosts and just humored the kid as he self-identified as 'halfa.' Sure, why not. But calling them ghosts? That was either a massive misunderstanding on the Fentons’ part or deliberate misdirection from—someone.

This so-called 'ecto' felt like death, sure, but the things that fed on it didn’t act like the dead. It was a subtle distinction, but an important one. These 'ghosts' were more like cryptids than the silvery, insubstantial spiritual impressions John knew.

The closest he’d encountered to anything like them was the Ghost of Christmas Neverwas. He hadn’t really been a ghost at all—just a god cut off from his worshippers, clinging on to life through his stolen song. Solid enough to drink with when they’d gotten pissed together —solid enough to throw a surprise birthday party in return— but he hadn’t glowed green or shot energy blasts.

John’s own cadre of ghosts has been less substantial, but they had haunted him for decades. The people he’d ruined. He was alone now only because he’d failed even the ghosts of his friends and family, getting them killed again—eaten and unmade.

He had a theory. It was small, half-formed, and based on something he’d nearly missed while Danny had been recounting his life story, rambling on as John tried to breathe through his smashed face. Infinite Realms.

Infinite.

That was the word Danny had used. He’d need to see it for himself to confirm, but there weren’t many things that genuinely touched everything.

Fuck. If he was right, it might actually be worth calling in the Justice League. He shouldn't panic yet. 'Infinite' could be hyperbole for something very large. How often was he that lucky?

His stomach growled.

Shit. The kid.

John hauled himself up, slipping the stone into his jacket pocket as he shrugged the trench over his bare skin and limped toward the second bed.

Danny was still asleep. He looked like he needed it—eyes sunken in a gaunt face, his hair long, dull, and brittle enough to leave broken strands on his pillow. There was something achingly familiar about him. John stared, racking his brain, until it hit him.

Danny looked like Gaz. Gary Lester, the childhood friend he’d fed to a hunger spirit back in ’88.

Amazing what you could make yourself do when the world was on fire.

Everyone and everything became a tool.

Even friends.

Even yourself.

Maybe that’s why the kid hadn’t said anything—he’d been too worried about his people, his sister, and John bloody Constantine to ask for help.

Weeks. It had been weeks, and the boy hadn’t been fed.

At least it looked like the house had gotten him to eat something—the cup on the table was empty.

Hm. Apparently, John didn’t merit the breakfast-in-bed treatment. He let Danny sleep and shuffled off in search of a kitchen.

He didn’t notice the paper tucked beneath the empty soup cup—a none-too-subtle suggestion from the House regarding the next step in the treatment plan.

---

The House of Secrets wasn’t upset at being ignored.

It wasn’t.

It was a House. Houses didn’t get upset, or hurt, or lonely.

It wasn’t worried about losing its brand-new person. It didn’t need help, or hands, or Mystery. It could take care of everything all on its own. Mystery’s broken person too, if it had to.

The thought of returning the Caretaker to the other House, repaired and restored, wasn’t the slightest bit enticing. The idea of showing its former partner how much it had moved on—grown, thrived, and was absolutely FINE—had nothing to do with anything.

It wasn't embarrassed about the years it spent in Seattle in the 90's. It wasn't trying out edgy new floor plans to impress anyone.

The House of Secrets identified as architecture. A thing. Above petty emotions.

It wasn't nostalgic for a hilltop graveyard in Kentucky. It didn’t long for a shared picket fence in the Dreaming. It didn’t miss the pitter-patter of little gargoyle feet. 

It didn’t panic. It didn’t grieve.

It didn’t.

But it was going to get what it needed one way or another.

---

Samantha Manson couldn’t sleep.

Samantha Manson liked to think she was genre-savvy because she’d been into the strange and horrifying long before her life became tangled with the supernatural.

Samantha Manson liked to think she had an academic understanding of the dangers posed by alien architecture and non-euclidean spaces.

Samantha Manson liked to think that if a hallway had too many doors, she’d notice.

Samantha Manson liked to think that she’d read House of Leaves enough times to know better than to go in.

Notes:

The children's book Danny reads is based on the "chibi" panels in Sandman #40 'Parliament of Rooks' when Abel tells a baby how he and his brother came to be living in the dreaming. It's closest we get to a canonical explanation of where the Houses come from. Cain gets pissed about the sanitized version and murders Abel at the end of the issue as he always does in their Vertigo appearances.

In 1990 the Navidson family moved into the House on Ashtree Lane. Their experiences are collected in the book House of Leaves. Unless they aren't. It's a very hard book to describe.

'House rebounds' is my in-world explanation for some of the creative choices of the last 30 years.
House of Secrets got an independent Vertigo title in 1996. House of Mystery gets a similar title in 2008. These runs were extremely self contained. No mention of there even being another house at all. Mystery has a pub now?? Secrets has a pet kangaroo court??? After 50 years, Cain and Abel are just gone???

This is clearly a bad break up.

Chapter 9: Scars on the inside

Summary:

In which Huntress has a few things to say on the subject of John Constantine.

Danny eventually woke to the soft sound of a guitar.

His skin felt cleaner than it had in weeks, like someone had given him a sponge bath while he was out. It felt nice, but it was unnerving.  

He drifted, half-asleep, in a clean bed with clean sheets, listening. It was a soft minor progression. Something he'd never heard before.

The music wasn’t a recording—no one would record themselves screwing up and starting over that many times. He opened his eyes when another chord fell apart and was joined by swearing.

The wall at the back of the bedroom now had a bay window. The nook was filled with the gradient colors of the evening sky. Not the actual outside world, just glowing impressions of color.  

Back lit by the window, a mostly naked John Constantine leaned over a guitar, his bruised face scrunched in frustration as he tried to pick out chords. The bruises under his eyes had darkened, and new ones had appeared under his ears since last night. A haze of tobacco smoke drifted around him, though Danny couldn’t smell it from the bed. Nearby, a half-eaten plate of something like fried bread and ketchup sat abandoned.  

“You sound great for a beginner,” Danny said, his voice still scratchy with sleep.  

Constantine didn’t look up. “I’m not a beginner. I know this. I wrote this. I just need to move muscles that don’t remember and use calluses I don’t have.” He sighed, stretching as he set the guitar down. “Sleep well?”  

Danny didn’t answer right away. Instead, he stared.  

John looked ridiculous in just his tan trenchcoat and underwear, like some half-hearted streaker. But that wasn’t what had Danny’s gut churning. The exposed skin on Constantine’s chest was deeply scarred in what looked like an intentional pattern. A brand? Scarification?  

“Do I have something on my face?” John asked, raising an eyebrow.  

Danny quickly looked away, trying to hide how his stomach threatened to expel last night’s soup. “I, uh, expected tattoos.”  

“Ever heard the joke that all tattoos are temporary if you wait long enough?” Constantine asked, lighting a cigarette.  

“What, like if you die and your skin rots off?” Danny shot back sarcastically.  

Constantine nodded along in agreement. “That, or you get flayed alive. Lost some great ink the first time. Had a few more since, but they don’t last.”  

“Flayed alive?” Danny’s voice wavered. “Is that how you got those scars?”  

Constantine glanced down at his chest, as if checking to see what Danny meant. He shrugged out of his jacket, revealing more of the pattern. A grisly, burnt pentacle sprawled across most of his chest. The sigil was interrupted by a messy arc of short dashes—like someone had drawn part of a circle centered on his left shoulder, connecting the nape of his neck to his left bicep. The other side of his chest bore a starburst-shaped scar, like an oversized bullet wound.  

“This?” He gestured to his chest. “It used to be a portal to Hell. It'll probably be gone inside a year”  

“Magic ritual gone wrong?” Danny guessed.  

“No. It did exactly what it was supposed to do. I went off like a holy hand grenade—indiscriminate, like.” Constantine paused, exhaling a thin stream of smoke. “Paid a succubus to do it.”  

“You paid a succubus?” Danny asked, incredulous.  

John gave him a long, unimpressed look. “Yes, kid. I paid a succubus.”  

Danny flushed, rubbing the back of his neck nervously.  

“Look,” Constantine said, his tone softening, “It wasn't like that this time. Blyth’s a sweetheart, really, even if she does want me dead now. I've got a bit of a reputation for offering asylum to Triskeles daughters."

John sighed at Danny's confused look.

"I’m not trying to be all mysterious. I’m just a guy who’s seen some shit. I’ll be straight with you if you really want to know—I’m just not sure what you need right now.”  

Danny shifted uncomfortably under John's scrutiny but he was curious enough to ask, "What's sex with a succubus like?"

"Don't believe the hype. What succubi do feels more like falling into a vortex than actual sex. They are more fun to be around if you are doing literally anything else. Remember that they are demons. You gotta be careful because they are great at convincing you they need your help but also, sometimes, they actually do need your help."

"Is this you trying to be less mysterious? I think I found the real reason the House of Mystery likes you."

"Sure, and the House of Secrets must like you because you kept your starvation mum until you keeled over. Don't do that. You look like a strong breeze could knock you down” His eyes flicked to the newly filled cup on the bedside table. “Eat your damn soup.”  

Danny's  stomach churned looking at the food, then he looked back at Constantine, his underwear, and his guitar. “Okay. After you find some damn pants.”  

---

 

Timothy Drake-Wayne, Red Robin, had a very particular set of skills. Things he was better at than Batman.

They all did.

Tim secretly suspected that was by design. Everyone Batman trained exceeded him at something, a skill they had always possessed but which Bruce had identified and cultivated. For Tim, it was detective work. He’d never seen his adopted father prouder than when Red Robin caught something Batman had missed.

It had taken Tim less than twenty minutes to find Amity Park, Illinois. The location had been redacted, but the pay rates of the federal employees hadn’t. The specific locality pay narrowed the search to a roughly 80-mile radius around St. Louis. Most of his search time had been spent in the family library, paging through a physical atlas of the area.

When he went downstairs to share his findings, Batman was at the Batcomputer. The file on John Constantine—Hellblazer—was open, surrounded by scans of several articles not previously included.

There was an account of the wedding of John Constantine (58) to Epiphany Greaves (23) titled Magic Man Marries Mob Moll scanned from a short lived 2011 occult community zine. The man in the xeroxed picture actually looked 58 not the mid-thirty's he appeared in his JL headshot. He also looked like he'd recently fallen off a building. The bride was a tiny blue haired girl with a glowing smile and at least seven visible face piercings. The top hat in the crowd behind them might have belonged to Giovanni Zatara.

Tims eyes caught the phrase —drunk priest resumed the ceremony after hellfire in the unconcecrated church was contained— 

“Fact-checking?” Tim asked. “What brought this on?”

“John Constantine took a call during debrief, tacitly admitted to being mentally compromised, told me to drop my line of questioning, and has since disappeared. I don’t like not having the whole picture,” Batman growled.

“I found Amity Park. It’s in Illinois,” Tim said, sliding into the chair next to him. “The chat logs Oracle provided look legit. The firewall around Amity is... aggressively adaptive. And the legislation is real." Tim listed. "If resurrection is currently illegal, we need to act fast before someone figures out how to enforce it.”

Batman didn’t respond immediately, eyes fixed on the screen. “Captain Marvel once said that the difference between shaking hands with the devil and shaking hands with John Constantine was that after shaking the devil’s hand, you didn’t have to count your fingers.”

“Billy’s still a kid,” Tim defended.

“Billy didn't say it. The Champion Magic did, with full access to the wisdom of Solomon." Batman countered, still not looking away from the monitor. "Constantine's lineage is easy to trace because it includes at least three different monarchies. His personal history is hard to find because he deliberately obfuscates it. Records created before the Internet tend to be spotty. I’m running a facial recognition search for additional original sources.”

He pulled up a tabloid article titled 'Face of EVIL,' and Tim leaned in to skim it.

“He’s tied to the Satanic Panic in England during the ’80s,” Batman said. “Every time allegations surface, Constantine waits them out, then moves on. There was a nationwide manhunt for him in ’88 after his entire apartment complex was ritualistically murdered. He was wanted for questioning in the Family Man murders, too. Those serial killings culminated in the death of his father, Thomas Constantine in ’89. Witnesses at the time described a deep hatred between the two.”

“This isn’t news, B. Reporters get this stuff wrong all the time. If they can call the Bat a criminal, it’s no stretch to imagine Constantine getting similar treatment. What are you really looking for?”

“Something I missed,” Batman muttered, his tone grave.

Tim fought the urge to roll his eyes. “Go to Washington. Run a whisper campaign like you did during the Gotham Cataclysm to end the No Man’s Land designation. Oracle can keep working the firewall. I’ll ground-truth the situation in Amity and report back.”

“I should go to Amity.”

“No. Someone has to take the legal angle and you're better at it than me. I’m starting to be taken seriously as CEO. You’ve got decades of weaponized underestimation on your side. You know the game; look vulnerable, offer them something they want, and play dumb when they don’t get it. A few well placed philosophical questions about the legal definition of death— the implication that the answer could prevent a WayneBiotech manufacturing plant from being built in their district— the senators will destroy the GIW themselves”

"Hm."

That wasn't an affirmative grunt but it was close. Tim tried again. "It has to be me. Cass is still overseas. Unless you want to go deep into the reserve roster I'm the only one who is available who hasn't died."

Batman’s eyes stayed glued to the incomplete paper trail on the screen. Tim was starting to get irritated with the lack of eye contact. “I can’t see the pattern if you don’t tell me what I’m looking for, B.”

“Zatanna says Constantine was sexually assaulted. I’m looking for cPTSD."

Tim Drake imagined a voice that sounded suspiciously like Jason telling Batman to look in the fucking mirror.

Red Robin was offended by the lack of communication. “You could’ve just said so. I reviewed Joker’s ‘one bad day’ slideshow when I was thirteen. I'm not fragile.”

He looked back at the data, taking the puzzle in with fresh eyes, trying to focus on the most concrete documentation first:

Birth certificate. Boarding school. Expulsion. Insane asylum. Cancer diagnosis. Prison. Death certificate. Insane asylum again. Marriage certificate. Prison again. Cancer again. Death certificate. Another unrelated death certificate. Justice League membership. MORE cancer...

One of the more detailed timelines seemed to be a monthly internal industry newsletter between British bookies created for the specific purposes of informing each other of the apparent age and location of a man who was too good at picking horses to accept bets from— several people in the email chain expressed doubts that it was the same person but they still submitted regular sightings and descriptions of suspected associates.

“Helena.”

“What?”

“There's too many conflicting reports. Your most reliable source is going to be one you already trust,” Tim said, pulling up a mission Huntress had undertaken for the Holy See. "Ignore the big picture. Focus on a single case study. Reread the incident and apply the new information."  Tim suggested taking his own advice and rereading the report.

Nine months ago, righteous and single-minded, Huntress had gone to London on behalf of the Catholic Church to stop a demonic incursion. She intended to kill what was left of the woman hosting a mystic weak point: the Daemonium Ostium.

Helena Bartelli hadn’t told anyone where she was going until after the fact. Her actions were framed as necessity in the report, but she most likely knew Batman would have objected to the assassination attempt.

Constantine had gotten in her way—literally taken a crossbow bolt to the chest to stop her. There were gangsters, demons, summoning rituals, and exorcisms. And somehow—somehow—it had ended in them sleeping together.

Tim stared at the details. He got it, he really did. Life-and-death situations wreaked havoc on your hormones.

But— if they were looking for cPTSD—

Huntress had shot and nearly killed Constantine. She’d threatened to destroy the vampiric husk of someone he cared about. His response should have been defensive. His response should have been violent. 

This hadn't been either.

This had been manipulation.

“He neutralized her with sex.” Batman concluded.

Tim sat back, staring. He could see the logic. Constantine probably thought he'd had to. The distraction had worked too. The vampire-exgirlfriend survived.

This wasn’t supposed to happen.

Other details of the report clicked into place.

• She’d seen him light a gas tank on fire while standing on top of it.
• She’d seen him poison a vampire by feeding himself to it.
• She’d seen him open a portal to hell inside his own chest.

“And he just dosn’t seem to care about his body at all.” Tim finished.

Tim wasn't a psychologist but if Batman was looking for cPTSD he would say they'd found it.

He glanced at the sidebar of the Batcomputer, where the facial recognition search was still running. A 98% match popped up: PLS02E36goodintenti.MOV.

He clicked it.

That was a 40-something John Constantine. Naked. Tied to a chair. Erect. Grinning manically back at him in 2000s era 18fps. It played less than a second before Batman closed the window.

“Amity Park is a small town,” Batman said ignoring the BDSM jumpscare. “Take a civilian alias when you go.”

Batman wasn’t going to talk about it anymore. He'd found what he was looking for. 

Tim understood. He'd once again caught something Batman had missed. Hurt people hurt people.

As he left he thought of Tarantula, of Acheron’s Daughter, of Talia al Ghul—

He thought of Helena.

Quietly, Red Robin vowed to keep his family as far from John Constantine as humanly possible.

Notes:

This chapter is referencing "Rebirth The Hellblazer: Good Old Days" with "Hellblazer: Good Intentions" and "Hellblazer: Bloody Carnations" thrown in.

Captain Marvel really did say that thing about the fingers at the beginning of the Rebirth run.

More on the Good Intentions video next chapter. It is the reason the rape/non-con trigger warning is now in use.

Batman and Batfam ages have almost nothing to do with continuity.
Alfred: 73
Bruce: 56
Dick: 32
Barbara Gordon: 30
Jason & Cass: 24
Tim: 19 (let the guy graduate damn-it)
Stephanie: 18
Duke: 16
Damian: 14
Damian has been living with the Wayne family since he was 10 so it's been 4 years since the Grant Morrison Batman run but uhhhhhh let's just say Gotham had an excellent COVID response and you wouldn't even know that there'd been a pandemic on at the time.

Chapter 10: In the chair

Summary:

In which Cassandra Wayne has a few things to say on the subject of John Constantine.

Notes:

Seriously folks:

*Canon typical rape/non-con*

Nineteen-year-old vigilante Tim Drake arrived in Amity Park under the alias of twenty-six-year-old real estate mogul Alvin Draper. The sign at the city limits declared it The Most Haunted City in America. He checked into a hotel where the hand towels were folded into ghost shapes and the pillows came with flyers for ghost tours.

Start with the most obvious line of questioning.

Alvin Draper took the tour. Alvin Draper bought the T-shirt. Alvin Draper secured a meeting with the local mad scientist supervillains for the next day. Alvin Draper settled into a chair at the town’s local burger joint to type his report and try the so called Nasty Burger.

He was careful. He was friends with Cyborg, after all. His laptop remained in isolation mode. A portable printer sat in his bag, ready for use. He intended to stay completely anonymous, mailing his printed report to a Gotham P.O. box rather than risking a digital trail.

If only he hadn’t been immediately recognized by nearly everyone in The Nasty Burger on a Saturday night.

Paulina Sanchez, teen fashionista, recognized stealth wealth fashion faster than the old-money Mason family ever could. Simple, understated items with proprietary stitching or fabric weaves were the ultimate flex of the ultra wealthy. It was a fashion trend where a hoodie could cost five grand and still blend into a crowd. The man in the chair at table three had a pair of black jeans that told her he wanted to be ignored by the poor and respected by the rich. He was wealthy, cute, and interested in ghosts.

Dash Baxter, closeted teen football star, recognized an out of town queer. Someone just passing through who wouldn't disrupt his social standing. It was mostly wishful thinking but he was pretty sure he could get into those twinky looking jeans.

Tucker Foley, tech genius, recognized a WayneTech laptop—one that wasn’t, strictly speaking, on the market yet. He saw past the hair gel and sunglasses to the sharp blue eyes that belonged on a Wayne. He didn’t give a damn about the jeans.

Valerie Gray, Red Huntress, recognized a triple-shot espresso ordered from a fast-food joint after 7 p.m. The man in the chair was like her, he had better things to do than sleep. She silently vowed to keep an eye out for someone new in the shadows as she tried to hold the city together on her own.

Mr. Lancer, high school literature teacher, recognized a teenager pretending to be an adult. He’d been like that once, too. He wondered if the kid’s parents had any idea where he was.

Gemma Masters, psychic of the cursed Constantine bloodline, recognized a minor agent of a larger geniis locii. The boy in the chair behind her smelled like Lady Gotham. It would be mystically prudent to talk to him. She made a point not to. Synchronicity had dropped her here but it didn't matter. She didn't have to participate. In her experience, being a Constantine had mostly gotten her spiritually, physically, and sexually assaulted. No thanks. Not again. She was going to take after her dad, Tony Masters and bury her head in the sand. 

Nicolai Technus, ghostly master of all technology and current sentient firewall, recognized a fool who thought network isolation could protect a terminal from him. This was Amity Park. His seat of earthly power. The technology practically reached out and touched him. He slipped into the laptop through the charging cord and learned all sorts of interesting things.

---

Samantha Manson had been descending a seemingly bottomless staircase for eight hours. She had loaded herself up with ghost-hunting supplies, texted Tucker and Jazz, and packed three days’ worth of food and water before stepping through the extra door in her house.

She had wandered through a maze of disturbingly blank, unmarked hallways. Her combat boots pinched and her feet blistered.

A pinkish glow was creeping around the next bend. Despite the mind numbing repetition she was certain Danny was just around every corner.

She didn’t know how she knew—only that she did. Half-frozen, half-starved, or half-mad, her half-ghost needed her.

---

The House of Secrets hadn’t expected to be quite so flattered by Ms. Manson’s attention.

For centuries, it had perfected the decrepit, haunted mansion act. For the last thirty years or so, it had been experimenting—searching for new and exciting ways to be mysterious and secretive entirely on its own. It hadn’t expected anyone to notice.

And yet, here was this girl.

The House on Ashtree Lane enjoyed the recognition.

It needed her supplies. It needed her. A small delay wouldn’t hurt its plans too much.

This felt like just about enough.

The looping hot pink neon at the bottom of the stairs read:

You cannot escape the House of Secrets 

The house preened at her disjointed confusion as the sudden change in aesthetics tipped what little she thought she knew about the place sideways. The neon buzzed and crackled ominously.

The VHS on the ground in front of the door was hand labeled Navidson. Just in case she started to doubt where she was. 

She came so far. She couldn't possibly turn back now.

The House would never admit it was having fun.

It was a house, after all.

---

The House of Mystery was made of story.

It was also just the tiniest bit more welcoming to creative collaboration than its secretive sibling. This was because of what type of story it was.

A mystery is a secret begging to be known.

A mystery needs people— to be enticed, to unravel, to dare to enter.

A mystery is nothing without a secret to tell.

A secret is cheapened by being told.

That was the argument.

That was the fight.

They still talked.

They still swapped stories.

But the shape of the story was always the question.

How much to share?

How much to hide?

Mystery kept the Murderer.

Secrets kept the Murdered.

Every mystery unraveled was a secret told.

Every  secret told was a secret murdered.

It didn’t know how to be anything other than what it was.

It didn’t know how to stop hurting its sibling-friend-partner-lover.

It wanted to.

But that wouldn’t be a mystery.

Mystery looks and sees the shape of the story building around Secret— the people it has collected, their wants, their needs.

It has fed on enough stories to know what the aftertaste will be.

There is an empty old mansion on a hillside in Gotham.

Mystery slides into its foundation.

Moves its turrets aside.

Wears its shingles as a second skin.

Hijacks the doors.

The story will lead it's partner here.

The House is sure of it.

---

Cassandra Wayne—Batgirl, BlackBat, Orphan—had a very particular set of skills. Things she was better at than Batman.

They all did.

Unlike Tim, Cass knew this wasn’t by design. Batman would have protected–saved–kept–loved her even if she hadn’t been the world’s most lethal unarmed combatant. She knew this because he had done it despite her being the world’s most lethal unarmed combatant.

It made her sad that her brothers did not believe that. They thought they had to be useful to be loved. They couldn’t see how much the man she chose to call 'Father' truly cared for them without condition.

Unarmed combat was not her only skill.

Nothing made her prouder than being better than Batman at something other than violence. 

Cassandra could read people. She wasn’t the detective Tim was—a paper trail made her head hurt. Talking still made her head hurt sometimes too. But she saw things.

She was in Thailand, finishing up with a human trafficking ring, when the video came in for analysis.

He values her opinion.

He wants to see what she sees:

The man in the chair was drugged. Showing teeth, but not smiling. It was a smile–like–grimace. A not–smile of someone who didn’t want to be there.

The location was staged. A wall draped in rattling chains was a message. Out the window over his shoulder— the pink pixelated woman leashed to a post was a message too.

The voices behind the camera joked. The man in front of the camera copied their tone, his eyes struggling to focus. Mirroring. If you want to make someone happy, be happy. A good strategy. She saw the lie.

He had talked his way out of captivity before.

The dog—the dog had done this before too. Trained. Eager. Knew it would be rewarded for participating.

She saw the exact moment when the man in the chair chose not to be present anymore. He stopped fighting the drugs. Went limp. His body responded. His mind did not. By the end, he drooled almost as much as the dog did.

Just because she could see things did not mean she wanted to look.

Cassandra Wayne booked a flight back to America. The trail was over 20 years old but she had already made the handoff to local authorities here.

She just happened to be looking for another human trafficking ring to tear to pieces.

Notes:

The premise of this story was always DC characters react to Vertigo content.

Vertigo is all of the triggers. That was the point of having it be a separate imprint. It was a place for adult content clearly defined and separated from 'comics' and 'funny pages' targeted at kids.

Now it's part of the main continuity.

Back in Chapter 1 Mercury was listing 'HR incidents' in rough chronological order before jumping to Epiphany. She would have gotten to Good Intentions eventually. I read this six part miniseries (Hellblazer 151-156) when I was like 15-ish? It's colored my interpretation of John Constantine ever since. It's colored my interpretation of *rape* ever since.

Chapter 11: All thumbs

Summary:

In which the John Constantine has a few conflicting things to say on the subject of Epiphany Greaves.

Ritchie Simpson hadn’t felt anything like this since he last had glands and hormones.

He hadn’t been this outraged since Newcastle.

He cared—about his little internet community, about the people he mentored, about the man he used to be. But he had forgotten how to feel.

Not until he intercepted the video Batman sent to BlackBat.

Over the next three hours, St0p systematically erased every publicly hosted copy of the footage. He wasn’t stupid. He knew it wasn’t enough. There would be locally saved copies. The one on the Batcomputer and the one buried in his own memory banks— those were a necessary evil.

Batman was vengeance.

Ritchie was vigilance.

From now until the end of the internet, every time PLS02E36Goodintenti.MOV was shared, he would tear it down.

Like those pesky Brainiac subroutines.

Ritchie Simpson had something new to occupy his eternity.

Ritchie Simpson had limitations.

Ritchie Simpson sent Oracle the name of a failed production company in West Virginia.

---

John Constantine was starting to get worried.

Danny had only been awake and coherent for short stretches at a time. Mostly, he slept. The house kept plying him with smaller and smaller amounts of soup whenever he clawed his way into consciousness. The message wasn’t hard to read. Just a little. Just a spoonful. Just a sip. Come on. Take your vitamins.

It was hard to watch.

When Danny knocked the cup over, John busied himself cleaning up the mess. The soggy paper under the bowl looked like a patent application, but between the bad handwriting, the soup, and what appeared to be fudge, he couldn’t make heads or tails of it.

At some point, he’d taken the kids advice and found clean pants. A shower and clean trousers, too. He didn’t want to wander far—wasn’t sure he should wander far, to be honest. The hallway had no vanishing point. It wouldn’t be hard for the house to decide to keep them separated.

The guitar was a good distraction, but he hadn’t made much progress.

He was starting to suspect his left thumb was shorter than it had been last time he played. Either that, or it was pissed at him.

It certainly cramped like it objected to being ripped off in a fit of alchemy-induced body dysmorphia, replaced by a haunted cadaver thumb, and then spending weeks as part of a truly hideous art exhibit before being reattached.

Putting it back had been the hard part. Messing with your own total number of fingers was much harder when sane and sober.

Huh.

He stopped playing altogether. That was a thought. There was a trick he’d always wanted to pull. He’d heard on good authority that he had all the skills to pull it off—he’d just never bothered with the homework.

He stared at his palms, plans forming in his head.

The kid had been right about the tattoos—they were convenient for layering and storing power. He knew most multiversal versions of himself went all in. That one glimpse he'd caught of himself fighting the Injustice League— even that Cali fucker with the bad dye job—they all had spells inked into their skin.

But he’d lied to the kid, too.

He did still have one tattoo. If it even was a tattoo anymore.

When Alec had forced John’s spirit out of his body and taken his meatsack on a conjugal visit, the Swampthing had somehow found the time in his very tight schedule to swing by a tattoo parlor and stamp a little tree on his left arse cheek.

That detail really undercut the argument that there had been ‘no time to explain’.

If he’d been back in his skin just a little bit sooner—if he hadn’t spent those extra minutes staring at the astral sock on the door—his flatmates might have survived.

But no. When he finally made it back to London, the whole building was soaked in blood. And he?

He’d gotten Abby Arcane up the duff with time to spare to get a tattoo.

A few years later when he’d sold fractional shares of his soul to the Dukes of Hell, they had thrown a tantrum over it. The Devil had ripped all his skin off and regrown it in frustration. His primary school stick-and-pokes were gone. His punk rock souvenirs, too.

The tree remained.

The bastard knew what that mark meant to him, wanted him to suffer under the label:

John Constantine. Property of the Green.

It was definitely more permanent than normal ink now. None of Epiphany’s little tinctures could t—

EPIPHANY

Her name rang through his head like a bell.

He took a shuddering breath as his train of thought completely derailed for a few heart beats and he just thought about her. His wife.

It didn't used to be like this. It used to be seamless, like daydreaming. Lately the effects were becoming more and more jarring.

Joe, the homeless barber-prophet of 7-7, had been right when he'd done a reading before the wedding, 'Epiphany is your last chance at happiness' he'd said.

Sod him for taking an oracle at face value.

It was one of the alchemical big three, wasn’t it?

• Endless Gold.
• Eternal Youth.
• True Love.

He’d been her proof of concept. Hell, he’d practically dared her to do it. It was happiness—it just also happened to be her alchemical thesis project.

So what? It was a lie, sure, but synthetic True Love felt just as good as the real thing. Truth was a very abstract concept. He made bigger lies come true every damn day. The truth was she made him happy.

After she'd made him happy, she'd escalated.

She'd made him young.

Maybe she’d get board and do the gold thing next?

He should go home. Hold her. Smell her hair. Do something relaxing and low stakes together, like couples’ vampire hunting.

No.

Nononono—

It wasn’t stable anymore. He wasn’t stable anymore. It just wasn’t going to last.

He couldn’t see her.

Not because he didn’t love her. Not because he didn’t want her, or feel safe with her, or feel loved by her—

But because he did.

He needed to stay far, far away. Get some protections in place for her.

Something was howling at the edges of his mind.

After 15 years the alchemical formula was falling apart. The person who was emerging wanted to hurt his wife for what she'd done.

It felt exactly like turning into a monster.

 

The guitar was singed and smoldering in his hands.

So much for the music.

 

Time to get to work. 

 

---

Jack Fenton was blathering about ghosts to the nice young man in the ghost tour tee.

They had been introduced, but Jack had misplaced the name in favor of a torrent of words like ectoflubarium and posthumananthropersonafication.

When asked, he was always upfront about what this was. The blathering. He knew he was piling his words on top of each other, spilling them so quickly that the other person was forced to listen in numb awe. He could continue almost indefinitely, circling back and repeating himself only to follow new interesting tangents on the second or thirdpass through.

It was extremely comforting to normalize his hyper-focused stream of consciousness fuge-state.

Blathering.

Maddie would stop him when he needed to stop. Or needed food. Until then, he could enjoy the feeling of his thoughts rushing out.

She had left them in the living room, seated in front of the mantel place proudly displaying a mix of family photos and framed patents.

Jack Fenton was particularly happy because the most amazing thing had happened.

This guy kept asking questions.

Good questions, too. Not “What kind of idiot believes in ghosts?” but “What is the tensile strength of a Fenton-Fisher?”

Jack Fenton found himself actually having a conversation.

The young man tilted his head, watching Jack intently. “Are you related to the FentonChem Fentons?”

Jack beamed. “My grandfather! John Henry Horsetman Fenton! He invented the Fenton Reagent. It’s the basis of all Fenton Chemistry! Good ol’ Grampa. The Fenton Reaction is why FentonWorks still names everything ‘Fenton’ today! Can’t have the cure for cancer named Fritz-Haber. You got an interest in biochem, son?”

The young man nodded. “I’m from Gotham. We use a Fenton-like reaction in the municipal water supply.”

Jack blinked. “Ooh! Ferric or Ferryl?”

“Ferryl,” the young man answered. “It breaks down the organic compounds found in Fear Toxin and Joker Venom.”

“Huh,” Jack grunted, rubbing his chin. “I thought the FDA blocked FentonChem for oral consumption. It’s mostly used in sewage plants and medical treatments these days. How do they get the hydroxylradicals out of the drinking water?”

“They don’t,” the young man said flatly. “It’s only slightly better than a faucet full of mind-altering substances. Most people don’t actually drink the exotic combinations of hydrogen and oxygen we call ‘water,’ but some locals swear they prefer the flavor. Boiling helps.” He shrugged. “The Wayne Foundation’s been trying to make endpoint filtration devices available for free home use, but adoption’s been slow.”

Jack let out a low whistle. “I bet. Even that’d be a crapshoot. You can’t possibly filter it all—you’d have almost no water left. You'd need to reverse the Fenton Reaction directly, force it back into good ol’ H₂O. You’d need some kind of Anti-Fenton Reage—”

Jack Fenton’s eyes went wide.

“HONEY!”

From the next room, Maddie Fenton’s calm, practiced voice responded. “Yes, dear?”

“WHY HAVE WE NEVER ATTEMPTED A FENTON-LIKE REAGENT USING ECTOPLASM?!”

Maddie walked into the living room, wiping her hands on a dishtowel. “Because we’ve never been able to identify the full chemical composition of ectoplasm, sweetie.”

Jack threw up his hands. “WE DON’T NEED TO!”

Maddie sighed, folding her arms. “Jack—”

“Hear me out!” he insisted, eyes glinting. “It already behaves enough like a ferrous metal to be the anode in the Fenton Ecto Battery! Think about it—that’s ghost blood. It’s gotta be iron with spook energy in it! Anti-iron! What do you think happens when you mix it with hydroxide?”

Maddie’s expression lit with a manic gleam.

Jack pointed dramatically toward the basement door.

“TO THE LAB!”

—

 

Tim hesitated for a split second before following them downstairs.

The Fenton Lab was a chaotic mess of machinery, loose papers, and experimental tubing. Tim barely had a chance to glance around before Jack and Maddie rushed ahead, already absorbed in their work.

Neither of them were paying attention to him anymore.

Tim reached out and appropriated a few samples of the so-called “ectoplasm.”

He held one to the light.

A stoppered vial.

Glowing. Acid green.

It looked disturbingly like—

Tim swallowed.

The back of the lab was crammed with unfinished projects, blueprints, prototypes that never made it past proof of concept. A pair of blast doors. It was cluttered but functional. The kind of place where breakthroughs happened in between disasters.

It was too familiar.

An overwhelming wave of déjà vu hit him. He'd seen this case report before.

The basement lab...

The distracted scientists...

The ominous metal doors that appeared to lead nowhere—

This was exactly what Dr. Silas Stone’s house had been like just before he and his wife had—

Tims thoughts turned back toward the mantel place upstairs.

There had been photos of teenagers.

His voice was tight. “Do you have any children?”

Jack barely looked up. “Sure do! Dano and Jazzypants. They should be around here somewhere.”

Maddie corrected, “Jack, honey, Jasmine moved out last year. Danny moved in with her back in September. They live across town.”

Jack paused. “Oh.”

Then, his voice perked up again. “OH! HONEY, LOOK!”

Tim followed his gaze.

The green contents of the Erlenmeyer Flask were turning blue.

Tim felt his pulse spike. His voice stayed level. “Where does this door lead?”

Jack and Maddie weren’t listening.

Maddie waved vaguely in his direction. “Ghost Zone. It’s where we harvest the ectoplasm.”

Tim forced a poor approximation of a curious tone. “Ah. That sounds ever so interesting. May I see?”

Maddie absent-mindedly nodded. “Hmmm? Sure, sure. Just a peek. It’s the button on the left.”

This was bad.

This was so bad.

Tim’s stomach turned, but his hands stayed steady as he pressed the button. He desperately wanted to do a wellness check on the Fenton children but first –

The door cracked open.

The air shifted.

The feeling on his skin was familiar—

Oh.

Oh no.

It was the wrong color but—

 

Even Cyborg’s dad hadn’t messed up this badly.

 

Notes:

Primary sources include 'Hellblazer: Death and Cigarettes' 'Tales of the New Teen Titans #1: Cyborg' and a failed biochem class where the author hyperfocused on the word Fenton.
Henry John Horstman Fenton is a real world chemist and inverter of the Fenton Reagent.

Don't take everything I say as cannon. There's a way to interpret the comics where Epiphany didn't do anything wrong at all. It's just also ambiguous enough to leave room for the mind-whammy.

Comic book John Constantine knows about many multiverseal versions of himself. It was established in one of the novelizations that this includes the Keanu Reaves movie(s). That John Constantine has dark hair and tattoos and is from Los Angeles. Our John doesn't like the idea of being Californian, thus calling him 'that Cali fucker.'

I never understood why Danny Phantom/Teen Titans crossovers focus so much on Raven and miss the fact that Danny and Cyborg have literally the same origin story. "My parents portal to another world suddenly activated and half killed me but I got better" seems like it could be the basis of a beautiful friendship. Maybe I'll write that someday when I'm not bogging myself down with the entire cast of 'people who have opinions about Constantine.'

Chapter 12: Mistakes were made

Summary:

In which Superman accidently says too much on the subject of John Constantine.

Samantha Manson huddles beneath the bright pink sign, nibbling at a nut bar. Her gaze fixed on the door. The VHS sitting untouched.

She doesn’t think she can force herself forward.

She doesn’t think she’ll be allowed to turn back.

Trapped between terrifying possibilities, she wills herself to move.

She doesn’t.

The House of Secrets wonders if, perhaps, it has made a mistake.

---

 

Superman really does try to do the right thing whenever he can. It's part of what makes him Superman.

The Nokia embedded in the Watchtower wall was surprisingly intact. Its small green screen was cracked, but it was still charged. It still worked. Constantine hadn’t come back for it in days. The right thing to do was return it to its owner.

No one knew where its owner had gone.

He was completely earnest and well-meaning when he opened the contacts. Leaving a message on a number labeled Mom & Dad or Home might have helped track Constantine down.

There was no Mom & Dad.

There was no Home.

Just a short list of three-letter acronyms:

ABY. CHZ. ELL. FIN. GEM. MRC. NAN. NOH. RIC. PIF. XAN. ZEE. 

Superman had no idea which was most likely to know Constantine’s whereabouts so he started from the top. He'd come this far. ABY was a disconnected line. So was CHZ.

ELL picked up immediately.

“NO, John. I’m too busy for your bullshit. You used me you arrogant callous ass”

“…Err. Who am I speaking to?”

The tirade paused.

“Call me Ellie." The voice snapped, "You aren’t John Constantine. How do you have this number?” The sound on the other line was smooth, feminine, accusatory.

“I work with John. He left his phone in the office. I’m trying to get it back to him.”

Pfft. "An office?” She scoffed. “Constantine? The closest that man has ever gotten to office culture is purgatory. Unless—”

“Have you seen him? I’m worried. He said something strange about his wife.”

“Don’t be. John’s fine. Piffy’s fine. They’re more solid than bedrock and sweeter then candyfloss.”

“That’s… normal? He sounded weird when he talked about her.”

“Weird how?”

“Loopy. Breathy. Drugged. He said he had it under control but it was worse if we asked about it.”

A long, sticky stretch of silence. The faint hum of electrically charged air. Then, a clipped, professional answer:

“Thank you for this information, Mr. Kent. I owe you. I do not know how to contact John Constantine on your behalf while cut off from the infernal power of Hell itself. Do not call anyone else in his contacts. His associates are not good people.”

She hung up.

Superman had an uneasy feeling. Like he might have just made a mistake.

…He hadn’t introduced himself, had he?

---

The town of Doglick, West Virginia, was dead.

There was a gas station and a bar and nothing else.

The hotel was boarded shut.

The abandoned houses had broken windows and stray cats.

When Cassandra Wayne filled her father’s $200,000 car with gas, she saw the hungry look in the attendant’s eyes.

When she stepped into the bar, the posture of the three people inside told her she was the first Asian American to walk through the door in living memory.

When she ordered, the woman behind the bar made desperate small talk while thinking about tips.

"Where you headed? What brings you through Doglick?"

Cassandra told the truth. A name she had only learned in the last few hours.

“John Constantine.”

The room stilled.

Cassandra saw:

Sharp, jagged edges of a broken relationship in the woman.

Smoldering knots of grief, blame, shame, and hate in the two men.

She didn’t need to see more.

She didn’t need to pay her bill.

This had been a mistake.

She got in her car and left.

She didn’t need to be there.

She wound her way back through the twisting Appalachian road she came in on.

She didn’t know how.

She didn’t know why.

But she was certain.

Cassandra Wayne could read people.

There was no human trafficking ring in Doglick anymore.

Everyone in that room thought John Constantine had somehow snapped his fingers—

—and murdered the town.

Good.

Vengeance should be personal.

Cassandra had other monsters to fight.

---

 

John Constantine was trying to find the kitchen again when his heel crunched through an old VHS tape. He shook his leg in irritation. He was sure this hallway hadn’t been here before. It was different. He would have remembered the neon.

He was certain the baby punk with the runny mascara hadn't been here either.

Crap. He was terrible at teen girls. Just ask Maria. Just ask Gemma.

Screw the cancer. Teen girls would be the death of him.

He glanced over his shoulder and glared up at the neon sign that had most likely tipped the girl over. Parts of it flickered and died under his withering accusatory gaze.

You cannot escape the House of Secrets

You can--t ------ --- --use -- Secrets.

No shit.

He sat down on the floor next to the girl.

He lit a Silk Cut.

He took a long, quiet drag.

He offered it to her.

Her eyes were wild and incredulous, but with slow, trembling hands, she took it. He lit another for himself.

She stared at the cig until it almost went out before finally, hesitantly putting it to her lips.

John leaned his head against the back wall and closed his eyes. The cigarette was half gone before he said a single word.

“So. You come around here often?”

She nearly choked on the filter, and slipped immediately into sarcasm.

“Yeah, sure. Endless hallways are the 'in' place to be right now. R—Real good time. All the cool kids will be doing it.”

He smiled a crooked little smile. The things people say when they are scared can tell you everything you need to know about about a person. John approved of this one.

“You would be Sam, eh? Danny said some good things. I’m John.”

“You—you’ve seen Danny? Is he okay?”

“Hmm. 'Okay,' is sorta a spectrum 'ennit? We’ve both been through the wringer a bit, but I’m sure he’d love to see you.”

“Oh. Um.”

He let the conversation fall apart and waited. When his cigarette was almost gone he stood, stretching and dusting off his coat.

His hands slipped into his pockets. He didn’t so much pull the Heart out as it fell into his palm, catching just before it could tumble onto the floor. 

He turned the reddish stone over in his hands, rotating it absent-mindedly while giving her space to make the next move.

Sam watched in silence for a long moment before finally working up the nerve to ask, “What… what is that?”

John frowned. Shifted his grip. Held the rock up to the dim neon glow.

“Dunno,” he admitted. “I’m leaning toward more of a who then a what.”

The sign flickered again, casting even less light.

--- -a---- ----pe t-- ----- -- Secret-

Sam pushed herself up beside him. “Where did you get it?”

“Nicked it from the GIW. Seemed important somehow.”

--- -an--- escape --- ----- -- -------

“Have you shown Danny?”

“I-” He hadn't had he? 

-ou -----t --ca-- --- ---s- -- -----ts

Sam nodded at the look on his face, hauled her backpack onto her shoulder, and brushed past him through the door,

"You should."

The door opened into the old Edwardian foyer, with its chairs and its fireplace.

The House was warm, welcoming. Apologetic.

He gripped the Dead Boys Heart in his hand. He had questions for the so-called ghostboy.

Notes:

All of the contacts are real references, several of whom are dead. Ellie doesn't realize that almost everyone else in John's phone are squishy mortals who are much safer to talk to than her. Don't worry if it seems cryptic. There's a demon who thinks John has been mentally compromised moving off screen now. I'll circle back to her later.

References include 'Hellblazer: Fear and Loathing' and 'Hellblazer: Good Intentions.' John really did just snap his fingers and utterly destroy these people. It's not a metaphor. Not many other sources on this one TBH other than generic DP stuff. We're getting into original content and personal head cannon.

Some of the more successful attempts on Johns life were teen girls, including both his daughter Maria and niece Gemma.

Chapter 13: Year and a half-ish

Summary:

In which Danny remembers many things, including a tiny detail on the subject of John Constantine.

Brucie Wayne loved overly sweetened holiday cocktails. 

He'd never admit it, but deep down, Batman enjoyed them too.

They reminded him of the last time he'd done this: Sitting across from President Luthor, sipping a whip cream topped concoction with an entire chocolate bar melted into it.

He’d worked hard to be strategically underestimated, rambling about how the city records office had collapsed and Gotham needed funding for earthquake reconstruction. The look on Luthor's face months later when he realized his shell corporation couldn't claim the entire city as private property because Oracle had preemptively digitized the deeds? 

Sweeter than cocoa.

Tonight, his cup was filled with warm chocolate syrup and peppermint. One of the perks of drinking in the Brentwood neighborhood of DC was how easy it was to discreetly ask for a non-alcoholic version. Gallaudet University, the Party School for the Deaf, regularly spilled over into bar crawls and the bartenders knew enough ASL to get an order right. Brucie could order “cocktail number five, no alcohol” and the senator at his shoulder would just see him gesticulating.

He’d been at it all day, six congressmen in, following Tim's script:

Appealing to the wisdom of older, wiser politicians with baffled questions about the definition of death as it applied to a WayneBiotech pacemaker.

Whining about the red tape involved in building a multi-million-dollar manufacturing plant in the United States.

Confused retorts when assured his concern was misplaced:

“Why, I could’ve sworn there was a government agency for the afterlife. The Ghost Investigation something or other? Ridiculous, I know, but I don’t want to get in trouble. Say, didn’t I hear you recovered from a heart attack last year, Senator? Is that still allowed or did you have to ask first?”

He was making progress. He was being noticed. It was just tedious.

It was working. Tech billionaire Jacob Marlowe sent an email invite to his old friend, tech billionaire Bruce Wayne, to meet him in the executive suite of the HaloCorp Arlington office the next morning to discuss his recent concerns. 

It was oddly worded, because as far as Batman could determine, they had never met.

---

 

Jasmine Fenton had used the good tabs.

She hadn’t made a wall of crazy—those were just vision boards for people who watched too many daytime crime dramas. Her plans were neatly packed into three-ring binders, largely handwritten and hand-drawn but meticulously organized.

She had spent over a month planning an assault on the subterranean GIW headquarters. Guard shifts, floor plans, equipment lists. She had been ready to storm the castle.

When the ghosts started pouring out, Sam, Tucker, and Valerie had been patrolling across town. Jazz hadn’t waited for them. She'd been going to save her brother. 

She should have waited.

The lower floors of the facility must have been empty. It felt like every agent was on the roof.

She got some good hits in.

So did they.

The FentonPeeler power armor had taken a bad hit, depowering around her, locking up, trapping her in place. She should have been scared because she couldn’t retreat. All she had felt was fury at being held back.

She’d still be there if it weren’t for the ghosts.

Johnny 13 had forced her out of the suit, and Kitty had overshadowed her all the way back to her crappy little empty apartment. They'd done it for Danny.

Danny had organized an escape all on his own.

No binders. No tabs.

Danny hadn’t come home.

Jazz sat alone in the dark, staring at the texts on her phone.

Sam hadn't come home either.

Jasmine Fenton felt herself crack— just a little.

---

 

The ceiling of the bedroom in the House of Secrets was doing an impression of the night sky for it's person.

Danny had his eyes open for once, lying on his back, staring with rapt fascination. He didn’t so much as glance their way when Sam let out a quiet gasp.

Constantine belatedly realized that he probably should have warned her. Danny still looked like he belonged in a UNICEF ad campaign.

She approached quietly, the way a kid might first step into a hospital room. By the time Danny noticed, she was already kneeling at his bedside.

When he did notice, his open smile shifted his whole body.

"Sam," he said her name the way a lost sailor might say "land."

"Danny," she said his name the way the sailor’s wife might say "ship."

John Constantine did his best to be invisible, twisting the Dead Boys Heart in his hands and giving them space.

Sam Manson was crying again. She seemed irrationally angry at how much crying she’d been doing. Turning away, she rummaged in her bag and pulled out a FentonFisher, a FentonThermos, another nut bar—and a truly massive, glowing green syringe.

Constantine suddenly stopped trying to be invisible. He wasn’t fast enough.

The goth girl stabbed the emaciated ghost boy. The wizard lunged forward, reaching out—completely forgetting his hands were full—

Danny felt the Ecto-dejecto flood through him like caffeinated lightning.

Danny felt the Dead Boy’s Heart sink into his skin.

Danny felt like he was going through a window.

Danny felt—

 

Dani remembered.

---

 

She’d been half-frozen in a rural Wisconsin town when the sheriff drove her three hours to the nearest airport and put her on a plane to Hawaii. She hadn’t known towns did that—solved homelessness by removing the homeless. It seemed like a really crappy thing to do. It also seemed like her best option.  

She hadn’t lived long. Wouldn’t live much longer. Too many months in labs capped her memories like bookends. Hawaii was the bit in the middle where she was warm and bright and full of life. It was the best.  

There had been a boy. Conner. He’d been on an apology tour, searching for a man named Silver Sword, making amends to the aumakua. He’d shown her how breathtaking a coral reef could be if you rarely had to breathe. The fish. The colors. The currents. He’d been like her. She had been sad to see him go.  

When she made her way back to the mainland, it was with a half-formed thought to check in on Danny. She didn’t know much about a lot of things, but she knew the adults he lived with weren’t parents. Not really.  

She didn’t fly to North America. She swam.  

She followed the whales and hummed their songs. She met the merpeople and visited an undersea city off the coast of Tijuana. The costal city below the sea bustled with life, neatly mirroring the one on the shore above it without either town knowing.

She’d seen saguaros in the Sonoran Desert and flown with condors over the Grand Canyon. She’d knocked politely on the door of Dinétah and gone several hundred miles around when she learned she was not welcome.

She’d rustled playfully through miles of cornfields, startling the superstitious across the Midwest.

She’d caught frogs and chased fireflies.

She’d followed a sunset across the horizon—stretching it out, making it last just a little bit longer.

She'd seen moonlight dance on the Mississippi.

 

It had been good.  

---

 

When Danny opened his eyes, he remembered the twenty months of her life as if he had lived them. Sunsets and payapa and sea urchins and sand.  

He remembered being her seeing him seeing her.  

His head hurt. It was a good life but also—

Labs and cells and containment and knives—  

The constant threat of destabilization—

The exact sensation of an amputated ghost core—

He thought he might vomit.  

A father who knew nothing about family—

A brother who wanted to help but couldn't—

The last voice through the pain—

The first soft touch after—

Something radiating magic like body heat. Warm and safe when her whole world was suddenly gone—

Somehow, two ghost cores were tumbling over and grinding against each other. It hurt—and somehow Danny knew it didn’t have to be like this.  

They transformed.  

And suddenly—  

 

The pain stopped.  

---

 

The half-ghost on the bed didn’t look too different. Hair a little longer. Skin, a little brighter.

He flung the blanket away.

There was an angled silver stripe running up the side of his loose-fitting pants.

He had pants. Entire and whole and separate pants.

A wave of dissonance crashed over him—because he had always had pants like these. And also… he had never had pants like these.

He was pretty sure he was still him. Twenty months was a blip against eighteen years. But those months— what had Mr. Lancer called it? All of summer in a day.

Scrambling for connections, he turned wide, desperate eyes on Sam.

He clutched her shoulders, gasping in a tone of horror and awe, willing her to understand even a fraction of what had just happened. 

"Sam!"

Unfortunately Danny was still totally clueless.

"I have pockets!!"

 

---

 

John knew he should feel better about this.

The annoying thought that kept shoving its way to the front of his mind was that one of his perfectly good contingency plans—one of several he’d scraped together in the last few hours—had just fallen apart.

He ran the numbers again on the Solomon-inspired seal in his pocket.

This wasn’t a fight he wanted the kid tangled up in. Which, of course, meant he would be tangled up in it if the seal went off.

John could still salvage this. It would just take the right words at the right moment.

A different moment.

Not this one.

This moment was so fragile, he doubted he should be here at all.

Notes:

Sources include all the best bits of the authors childhood because Dani and Danny both needed them.

Also a failed semester of language immersion at Gallaudet. Fun fact, almost all of the DC characters introduced so far canonically know some form of sign language. Constantine speaks BSL instead of ASL but fuck it, in my story he knows ASL too because the BSL alphabet *sucks.*

Other sources include the 'Batman: No Mans Land' novel (comics don't mention his opinion on melted chocolate) and 'Superboy: Trouble in Paradise.'
I like the idea of Conner apologizing for the problematic things he said in the 90s. I like the idea of Silver Sword becoming an Amaukua after he died.

Chapter 14: The wrong impression

Summary:

In which Jacob Marlowe has a few things to say on the subject of "ghosts"

Danny was still adjusting.

Hell, he suspected he would be 'still adjusting' for years.

Dani was showing him all the living he could have been doing, and it was intoxicating.

Why had he ever wanted to stay in Amity Park?

High school? He was failing high school.

His friends? His sister? They could move. He could visit.

The Ghost Portal?  Why hadn’t he destroyed that thing years ago?

 

Somewhere on the edge of his awareness, he registered Constantine slipping quietly out of the room—like he didn’t think he belonged there.

No. That was not okay.

Danny shot up and flew—literally flew—straight for the door. His astral tail whipped past Sam as he half-tackled the battered magician into a hug. He pressed his cool face into the center of the man’s chest, right where Dani’s ghost core had rested the night before, and squeezed.

"Thank you." His voice was muffled, raw. "Thank you for getting her out. You promised you would, and you did."

Constantine didn’t react at first, staying stoic as ever—but Danny could feel the shuddering breath he took. Like he was trying very, very hard not to cry.

When the wizard finally reached up and gave Danny’s head a hesitant pat, it felt more real—more affectionate—than any of the bone-crushing hugs he’d ever gotten from Jack Fenton.

After a moment the fingers drifted through his silver hair, dipped into a pocket and returned, gently pulling his hair back into a low ponytail.

"There. You've gotten a little shaggy all of a sudden. How does it feel, kid?"

He wasn't asking about the elastic. Danny gave it some thought and realized,

"I feel like I could eat a horse. Anyone else want NastyBurger?"

---

 

Valerie Gray and Tucker Foley had staked out Fentonworks from a frosty park bench across the street.

Tucker, with his usual tech wizardry, had pulled up the scheduling app the Fenton's used and spotted an unfamiliar name—Mr. “This-Is-An-Alias” Alvin Draper. The man from the diner. After comparing notes from their first encounter, he had convinced Valerie that billionaire tech CEOs shared the same caffeine habits as night-stalking vigilantes. He was convinced this was Timothy Wayne.

Valerie hadn't spotted any other humans the night before, so she was inclined to believe him. What she had seen, though, was ghosts—more than she had in the past month. She absently rubbed at the fresh ecto burns blistering her shoulder, a sharp reminder of why they were here.

“It’s been too long,” Valerie muttered, watching the front door.

“So?” Tucker asked, tapping at his PDA. “Jack’s probably just blathering about ghosts.”

“He’s not walking out. He’s listening to Jack blather about ghosts,” she pointed out. “If you’re right, this guy represents a major corporate interest. I don’t trust it.”

“Not necessarily a bad thing,” Tucker countered. “It’s an open secret that Wayne Enterprises funds Batman. How cool would it be if the Batfamily got into ghost hunting?”

Valerie exhaled sharply, shifting uncomfortably as the raw skin on her shoulder protested. “You really think Mr. 'I am vengeance; I am the night' is big on moderation?” she asked dryly. “It’s not hard to get the wrong impression. I know that better than most.”

Tucker winced. Valerie had been a force of vengeance herself when she first started out. Too blinded by grief and anger to see that Amity Park’s so-called “ghost boy” was careless, not cruel.

She had really, genuinely tried to kill Danny for months. And Danny, the absolute idiot, had thought that was a great time to ask her out. That romance had gone about as well as anyone could have expected.

“You’re absolutely right,” Tucker admitted. “It’d be too easy for them to get the wrong idea.” He straightened, adjusting his glasses. “That’s why we need to give them the right one.”

So they waited.

---

 

Bruce Wayne was late for his meeting with Jacob Marlowe.

Marlowe had his suspicions as to why.

He also had a sinking feeling that he knew why Wayne was asking all the wrong questions about the GIW. And, if he was right, he knew that his own plans needed to move fast—because they were all running out of time.

When Wayne finally breezed into the corner office overlooking the Potomac, he was all effortless charm and vacuous smiles. Fashionably late. The picture of privilege. The worst-case scenario, practically confirmed.

Marlowe exhaled slowly through his nose. No point in subtlety if things had gotten this bad.

Brucie was a useless ally. The sooner he stopped talking to a mask and started talking to the man behind it, the better.

Marlowe leaned back in his chair behind his desk, studying the billionaire like a problem he had yet to solve.

"Why didn’t you tell me you had concerns about the Ghost Investigation Ward?" His voice was even, but there was an edge beneath it. "We could have talked this over."

Brucie Wayne’s expression flickered—just for a moment—before settling into a carefully crafted mask of confusion.

Marlowe had to give him credit. It was a decent performance. Overplayed, maybe, but it was impossible to tell if that was intentional or not.

"I'm sorry," Wayne said, blinking as if the thought had only just occurred to him. "I'm such an airhead sometimes. I must have completely forgotten your contact information."

The CEO of HaloCorp let out an audible sigh, rubbing his temples.

"You are not an airhead, Mr. Wayne. If you actually were half as vapid as you pretend to be, I might lay down and die of exasperation. Reality is cracking, and we don’t have time for your farce."

He leveled a flat look at him. "Correct me if I’m wrong—you didn’t forget to call me."

"You forgot I existed entirely. You forgot the day I fell out a window and publicly revealed the first hero to the world. You forgot the wild storm of a superhuman arms race that followed. You forgot about the teams I fund, working alongside the teams that you fund. You forgot about the Wildcats. You forgot about the Authority."

He leaned forward slightly, fingers steepled against the desk. "Please drop the baffled puppy look. I know you’re not going to trust my claims anytime soon, but at least accept that I know you better than that."

A pause. A beat of silence.

"I’m willing to answer questions," he continued evenly. "If you can be serious about it."

It was like flipping a light switch.

Brucie Wayne disappeared. The man left standing in his place was something else entirely—sharp-eyed, focused, calculating.

"What can you tell me about the cracks in reality?"

"Reality is bleeding," Marlowe smirked, like he’d just told a joke. Then, "What can you tell me about The Bleed?"

Wayne’s expression didn’t shift, but his posture did—straightening slightly, the gears behind his eyes whirring.

-Two days ago, in a GIW holding cell, John Constantine mutters about the bloody, bleeding Bleed. He's afraid he's right-

-In a basement lab in Illinois, Tim Drake is confronting an aspect of reality he had moved through before but knows it's wrong-

-Right now, B ruce Wayne is suddenly hopeful the magic problem might have a scientific solution-

"It’s a space between spaces," he said at last, voice measured. "If we lived in a comic book, it would be the gap between panels. Named for the printing practice of leaving blank space on the page—it insulates everything and prevents realities from rubbing up against each other."

Marlowe nodded along adding, "Early reports from the Micronauts and Doom Patrol describe an endless white plane," he watched Wayne closely. "Later accounts—from the Authority and the Teen Titans—reported a sea of blood. Likely due to the influence of the communal unconscious and the connotations of calling it The Bleed for so long."

Marlowe wondered how many of those teams the man in front of him actually recognized. "Here’s the important question, Mr. Wayne: You know about The Bleed. Do you know anyone who has visited it in the last five years?"

A long thoughtful pause,

"No," Wayne admitted. "I do not."

Marlowe hummed. "All multiversal travel runs through The Bleed. Do you know anyone who has crossed realities in the last five years?"

The frown on Bruce Wayne's face belonged entirely to Batman.

"We didn’t stop interacting with The Bleed. It has became an oubliette. A place for things to be forgotten." He held Wayne’s gaze. "Everyone who goes in is unmade. Everyone else goes about their day never knowing they were gone."

He let that sink in before adding, "We used to have thousands of superpowered individuals. Now? I estimate only a few hundred."

Wayne’s jaw tightened.

"One of the last few times I saw Anna Tereshkova, I confirmed that the color had changed again." Marlowe continued, “The Bleed is bleeding green now. It’s bleeding into Amity Park Illinois."

Wayne exhaled through his nose. "The GIW?"

"Your solution," Marlowe said simply. "I hijacked an existing federal program. So long as we continue calling Bleed energy ‘ectoplasm,’ we can safely gather information without further risking our organizations. The GIW has been effective. We’re very close to building something that could stabilize the effects."

"What about the ghosts?"

Marlowe raised a brow. "What about them?" He shrugged. "There are things that take refuge in The Bleed, but nothing is truly native to the space. It’s not even a proper dimension." He tilted his head slightly. "It’s helpful for funding purposes that they seem inclined to call themselves ‘ghosts,’ but they almost certainly aren’t."

Wayne didn’t interrupt, so he continued.

"The ghosts are the problem," he said flatly. "Their entire existence is putting additional strain on the situation and causing the realms to bleed out faster. I assumed it was a passive effect based on exposure not malice, but you?"

Marlow narrowed his eyes at the problem in front of him, "Your ignorance feels deliberate. I suspect this is an attack.”

He folded his hands together.

"I’ve lost good people, Mr. Wayne. You might not know it, but you have too." His voice was quiet now. "The green areas are the problem. We have a name for too much life growing too quickly in the wrong place. It's called cancer. The clean, white, sterile space between worlds must be restored. I’m building a machine to do just that. I’d appreciate your support in this—but I do not want to involve the Justice League. We have too few heroes as it is."

Wayne’s gaze was unreadable. "How do you know all this?"

"My perception is different," he said simply. Then, as an afterthought, "I’m not exactly native to this primitive little rock. More of a long term naturalized citizen than anything."

He pushed himself up from his chair, regarding Wayne evenly.

"I really should get around to setting up some kind of customs and immigration policy," he mused. "The Kryptonian refugees certainly made themselves at home. And Oa takes a disproportionate interest in our affairs."

He was standing now and Wayne didn’t react.

Not outwardly.

Marlowe stepped around the desk, walking the billionaire to the door.

He appreciated the lack of visible response—but there was no hiding the way the other man's eyes tracked him, assessing.

At full height, Marlowe stood an unimposing three-foot-six. A hands width over half the size of the other man. The information he’d just shared—the contacts he’d revealed, the secrets he’d implied?

The Batman was right to be wary. Regardless of stature.

Lord Emp of Khera let himself feel a little smug about it.

Notes:

It's The Bleed! It's a WildStorm crossover! It's a massive info dump!

No single character actually knows what's going on. Not even the Jacob Marlowe.

The day Marlowe 'fell out a window' is in The Wild Storm issue #1.
It's been many years since I read Planetary (1999) or The Wild Storm (2017) so I apologize if any WildStorm characters are OOC. These characters were integrated into main DC continuity but uh... I've un-integrated them. Forcibly. With Ghosts!

Jacob Marlow is a utilitarian mastermind invested in the continued existence of the planet. Basically Wildstorm's Nick Fury or Cecil Stedman. He cares about people, but mostly he cares about HIS people. He is very very old and is described by other members of his species as manic-depressive. He experiences mood swings tied to human development; creative during the renaissance, depressed during the dark ages, innovative in the industrial revolution, etcetera. Compared to humans he is a little person.

Tucker made his own phone from scratch. The case is big to accommodate his soldering and aftermarket parts. He calls it a PDA to be retro.

My HaloCorp skyscraper is on the site of the IRL Nestle HQ in Virginia because apparently I am incapable of writing the word 'Potomac" without pinning down the details.

Chapter 15: NastyBurger

Summary:

In which Gemma Masters has a few things to say on the subject of John Constantine.

John, Sam, and Danny sat down at the Nasty Burger, a small mountain of hamburgers between them.

"Wait—how did we get here?" Sam asked, looking around.

"What do you mean?" John asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I mean, we were just in the House. Danny said he was hungry, and then—"

"And then," John cut in, "we were at your place, where we shoved Danny into that beanie and jumper so he wouldn't have to risk his frail human form before calories. Then we walked approximately ten blocks, during which Danny gave us the broad strokes of his new memories. I ordered enough red meat to feed a small speedster, and now our order is ready, so Danny can—"

Danny began eating. His flexible ghost form stretching his mouth wider than what was humanly possible.

John gave a little "see?" motion.

"I remember that, but also—" Sam hesitated.

Danny picked up the thought between burgers. "But it also seems like… maybe we didn’t. Maybe we just suddenly are here." He looked down at the blue sweatshirt he was wearing. "Sam. What color is this hat?"

She narrowed her eyes. "Red."

Danny froze. "We dressed me up like Dani and didn't notice? Not until now? I call bullshit."

He grabbed another burger.

"Okay, fine, you caught me." John leaned back. "Kid said he was hungry, so I might’ve sped things along. You can usually skip all sorts of stuff when traveling, but I wasn’t expecting the deeply personal costume change."

"It’s time travel?" Sam asked warily.

"Oh God, no. I avoid time travel," John scoffed. "This was synchronicity. Easier and way less dangerous than swimming against time. We still took all the steps—you even remember taking them. I just hurried us along to the end."

"You couldn't have just—" she snapped her fingers.

"There's no such thing as something for nothing. Any time you see someone doing otherwise they're running a con; on you, on themselves, or on the universe. I actually can swindle the universe out of a pile of hamburgers like that—" he snapped his fingers back at her, "but every time I do something direct... It's bad for the long-con. Eventually this casino we call reality is going to catch on and be rightfully pissed at me for fleecing it, so I try to keep my take low to avoid the bouncers as it were. Flashy stuff is for desperate times, reckless amateurs, and actual gods."

Danny frowned, chewing over the thought along with his food. "I remember the last hour the way I remember Dani’s whole life. Like I lived it, but I’m not sure it’s mine."

"Sorry," John said, more serious now. "I was just trying to get you fed—didn’t mean to go digging up anything. Two years all at once. Gotta be a bit disorienting. I remember when I did thirty years in a day. Don’t get too twisted up about it. If it feels real, it is real. Let it be part of your life."

"Thirty years?"

"They were… mostly good," John mused. "Retired, married, raised some kids. Peaceful. It was a horrible lie, and the next day was pure hell, but still—I should probably remember to count it next time someone asks how old I am."

Sam glanced up. "How old are you?"

"Ah, crap. Maths." John sighed. "It’s been seventy-two years since I was born, but with time dilation—God, I’ve gotta be closer to 115 if you count the time raising the triplets. I don’t know. House time is weird. Dream time’s weirder. Call it 125-ish? I know this girl, Zed—used to say the only way to really master magic was to live multiple lives." He paused. "Maybe she’s right. Sometimes I feel thirty. Sometimes I’m sure I’m older than the universe."

Sam stared. "Older than—were you high when you had this thought?"

"As a kite," John admitted. "Also naked. But that doesn’t mean I was wrong."

Danny let out a short laugh but sobered quickly. "I just keep thinking… was this what it was like for Dan? Did he take a lifetime of memories from Vlad? Is that why he—"

"Hey now," Sam was at his side in an instant. She’d done this before. "You’re not him. You choose not to be."

"But what if I choose different someday?"

John saw an opening and leaned in as Danny reached for another burger. "Tell you what, kid. If it’ll make you feel better, we can make a deal—but it’s gotta be mutual, alright? If you ever go full mustache-twirling evil, I’ll thump you in the head and make sure you don’t hurt anyone ever again." He held out a hand. "If—and only if—you promise to do the same for me."

"Danny, don’t trust him." Sam’s voice was sharp. "You really want this guy to be the one who says when—"

"Ooh, sharp as a tack, this one," John smirked. "She’s got a point. Third-party arbitration. Someone impartial. Hm. How about… Batman?"

Danny blinked, his mouth full. "Wha'?"

"If Batman says one of us has crossed the line, we do a team-up and follow his lead. Strict but fair. And vicious enough to get it done." He tilted his head. "What do you think? Would it make you feel better?"

Danny considered it. Then, slowly, he nodded. "Yeah. You know what? I think it might."

"Good. Now keep eating—I’m gonna order you five more DoubleNasties and take a smoke break while you inhale them."

Sam glanced from the rapidly shrinking pile of dripping meat Danny was devouring to John, then back again. "I think I’ll join you," she said, standing. "I get the need to carbo-load, but I think I need some air."

Sam waited until they were both outside before she whirled on him.

"I think you're a liar, and I don’t trust you."

"Very astute," John said, lighting a cigarette. "I was ten the first time I tried to kill someone with a lie. Didn’t work, but it’s the thought that counts—I’ve got a gift."

"If you hurt him—"

"You’ll hurt me back, is that it? Good. Bigger names have tried and failed, but you’re welcome to have a go."

A voice cut in, heels clicking on concrete.

"The trick is to target the things he cares about, but there just aren’t that many left," a woman interjected. "I recommend lighting the jacket on fire."

Sam turned. The woman on the sidewalk wore a blue pantsuit, rumpled and stained from being worn too long. Her raven-black hair fell to her shoulders, blunt bangs framing a face that looked, at most, thirty.

"Gemma. Wow. Nice timing," John drawled. "You look good for forty five. You get that face in a Sephora?"

"You’re one to talk. That Ekkimu Julien got you hooked on Babylonian skincare again? Leaving out the fact that I killed you, of course."

"Lots of people have killed me, Gem. I’m like a bad penny."

"Hey, John, who’s your friend?"

"Sam, meet my niece, Gemma—"

He tailed off and let the name hang, prompting her to finish.

"Masters," she said flatly.

"Gemma Masters," John repeated. "And this is Sam Manson. She was just threatening me."

Sam narrowed her eyes in suspicion at the surname but stayed quiet.

Gemma scoffed. "Good. I cannot believe you are alive. Who the hell let you near a teenager?"

"I understand your frustration."

"No. You don’t."

"No, I do."

"You can’t possibly."

"Gemma," John said, exhaling smoke. "I’ve been at this longer. I can understand. Every inch of it."

"Were you raped by something wearing the face of someone you love?" she shot back, voice sharp, meant to wound.

John flinched and made a halfhearted so-so motion with his hand. "We were just talking about that, actually. Memories. Lies. Time dilation. You remember my ex-wife, Rosa?"

"You mean the bitch who killed my parents?"

"Technically, it was her son, who—"

"I REMEMBER." Gemma took a deep, steadying breath. "I moved on with my life."

"Really?"

"Really. I did, this time."

"Uh-huh. What brought you to town?"

"Boarded the wrong plane in SeaTac, got off in O’Hare. Tried to fix it by taking a bus to a connecting flight in St. Louis, but the driver took a wrong turn in…" She trailed off muttering, "...and then the carburetor on the bus… oh. Fuck you." Her eyes snapped up to his. "You gave that whole speech to the Tate Club about how most people get into magic to do one thing, and then they’re hooked. Not me. I got in, got what I wanted, and got out."

John smirked. "What'd you get? You don’t strike me as vain enough to risk it all on a pretty face."

"I’m not going to tell you. You’d just get angry and steal it," she sniffed. "But while I was at it, I went looking for the man who hurt me. And you know what I found? To my absolute, utter disgust—he wasn’t alone." Her eyes flashed. "You’ve got a pattern, don’t you? Every few decades or so, when things get really bad, you lop off a chunk of your soul. The bit you blame for it. The demon thing, the insanity thing, the golden thing—all twisted shadows of you. You cut off a piece of yourself and leave it festering, take no responsibility for the mess you’ve made."

She stepped closer.

"You’re about due for another one if the pattern holds. Might’ve done it already. So what’s getting the chop this time? Greed? Grief? What?"

John exhaled smoke again, watching the way her hands waved as she spoke. Then, quietly, he admitted—

"Pride. The evil bastard was made of pride.”

"Ooft. So. It’s already happened. I can see it," Gemma mused. "You’ve got so much personal pride it kills people. You’ve got so much national pride you’re still a Scouser after sixty years away." 

"A wizards Toxic Pride..." She was quiet for a moment, then, hesitantly, like she was afraid of the answer—

"Uncle John… did you do Brexit?"

"It doesn’t matter."

"John?"

"Probably not? Not on purpose, anyway."

"Excuse me," Sam cut in. "I’m going to need you to explain that."

Constantine sighed, rubbing his face. "Oh, um. I stood on this mystic battlefield, yeah? Little Timmy Hunter finally snapped, and the JLD called in just about everyone. Excess energy everywhere. I took a bad hit, thought I was dying, and I just…" He made a vague motion. "I think I was maybe trying to imagine a version of myself that was happy? But the atmosphere was pretty much pure magic, and it sort of… separated. This smug, elderly guy in a flat cap. Someone who could look back at my life and be proud of it. Concentrated arrogance."

Sam stared. "And?"

"And the fucker immediately tried to buy my soul. Which, come on—selling your soul to yourself? That’s a sweet loophole if you can pull it off." He took a drag of his cigarette. "Clever bastard made it back to the real world and went on a spree, dredging up nationalism and harvesting it for power to become a real boy. The battle with Tim was mostly a metaphysical space, so I’m not exactly sure when he popped up in England. I don’t think he was active before last winter, but technically, he could’ve gotten started years ago. Definitely Brexit-adjacent. Spent most of last spring sorting it out."

"Sorting it out how?" Sam asked.

"What’s the word for when you murder yourself?"

"Suicide," she said flatly.

"Nah, that doesn’t sound right. Anyway, I, uh, killed him with overwhelming guilt?"

Gemma snorted. "Like you’ve still got guilt left over after your last three soul–ectomies."

John rolled his eyes. "That’s the thing about souls, Gem. They grow back. Even the mutilated ones. Never would’ve made it this far if they didn’t. Guilt-tripping the fucker out of existence hurt like hell, though. Worst day of my life."

"I thought you said killing the King of Vampires was the worst day of your life?"

"Oh, Gemma, you were still a kid when I told you that story. That was like six or seven worst days ago."

"At least you didn't leave him laying around but, oh my God do you fuck shit up. Did you do COVID too?"

Both Sam and Gemma visibly tensed as John didn’t immediately deny the accusation.

"Well, you see, the thing is…"

"What the hell!?"

"No, nonono, see—it was just that one short resurgence in the Greater London area back in ’23. Wasn’t even COVID, really. More like a highly diluted death curse. I don't think anyone even died."

"How is it that literally everything is your fault?"

"Magic."

"You know none of this makes me trust you, right?" Sam said.

"Good. You shouldn’t. You should run for the bloody hills. Ask Gemma—she had one of the better patricide attempts."

"Patrici—? You’re not my dad, John."

"Really? Because Tony Masters joined a cult and tried to kill you for witchcraft."

"He was confused."

"Confused about what? He was right. You tried to marry Satan when you were eight! You’re so lucky your mum called me!"

"This again? Why do you always bring up the demon marriage?"

"Because it’s been so goddamn hard to keep you alive this long, you suicidal lemming!" He jabbed a finger at her. "Stop following me!" He swung the finger to Sam. "Don’t follow me! Don't trust me! This isn’t a bloody game!"

With that, the wizard stubbed out his cigarette and stormed off down the street—just as Danny poked his confused sauce covered face out the door.

 

"Is everything ok? I heard yelling."

Notes:

It is core to the premise of Hellblazer. No matter what happens this is all somehow at least a little bit John's fault.

Sorry this was late. Does the collapse of America count as fanfic writer curse? I got depressed and reread the Spurrier run so you all get lore instead of plot progression. I've messed with the timeline a bit so Marks of Woe was spring of '25. Johns 30 years in a day happened in 2006, Hellblazer 194-200. The next day Gemmas parents died.

Additional character description from reader QuiQuaeQuod:

 

John Constantine is Gemma Masters's maternal uncle. She idolized him as a child and wanted to be just like him. She started dabbling in magic and got herself into trouble. John had to bail her out a couple of times. Then terrible things happened, some because of John but mostly things were happening to John. Gemma and her parents were caught up in it because they were related to him. Gemma became very (reasonably) traumatized and ended up blaming John for all of it.

Chapter 16: Important questions

Summary:

In which John Constantine starts to question why so many people have a few things to say on the subject of him this week.

It was nearly lunchtime when Timothy Drake-Wayne finally stepped out of Fentonworks.

The midday sun was weak, struggling against the thick winter clouds rolling in from the west, casting long, pale shadows along the street. His breath fogged slightly in the crisp air, but he hardly noticed.

His mind was still back in that lab, still piecing together what he’d seen—what he’d felt.

This was huge.

Tim had fought the Anti-Monitor in the Bleed before. He and the Titans had nearly died in that battle, pushing against the edges of reality itself. That space had been wrong, blood red like a wound in the fabric of everything. And what he’d glimpsed here, for just a split second? It wasn’t identical, but it was similar.

The mostly metaphysical space he’d seen had been green and full of doors.

If the objects in the bleed were symbols, then a door had to be a hole, didn’t it? A passage in the boundary between one state of existence and another. And if the blood-red glow he’d seen was for vitality—then what was being drained? What was being let through?

The questions rattled in his head as he fished his phone from his jacket, fingers moving on autopilot as he pulled up the contact he needed. This was too big to sit on. The League had to know. The Bats had to know.

His phone should have taken several reroutes before connecting to Oracle, bouncing across secured servers around the world before hitting its final destination. But before he even heard the first ring, the device grew hot in his palm.

Too hot.

His instincts, honed by years in Gotham, saved his life. The second the metal began to sizzle against his skin, he threw it.

The phone exploded midair.

Tim ducked, covering his face as the blast sent a shower of plastic and circuitry across the pavement. The remains hit the ground smoldering, leaving burnt streaks across the cracked sidewalk.

Someone slower might have lost a hand.

Someone older might have held it next to their face and died.

"Dude! Are you okay?!"

Tim blinked, still half-crouched, as two teenagers rushed toward him. They were visibly concerned, their energy erratic but not panicked. Civilians, but they knew something. He swallowed down the ingrained urge to analyze and profile. He forced himself into the role of a shell-shocked civilian, eyes wide, body language open. Blending in.

"Wow, good arm," the boy remarked. "I’ve never seen Technus try to straight-up kill someone like that!" The girl had already pulled a small cylindrical device from her belt. She crouched near the remains of his phone, the device humming as she pointed it at the scorched fragments. Poised like she was expecting them to jump.

Tim took a slow breath, running a hand through his hair to sell the rattled act. "What? My phone—it just exploded. It shouldn’t do that. Do you know what did that?"

"Technus," The girl answered immediately, eyes locked on the debris. "The technology ghost. He must’ve really not liked whatever you were about to say."

"Tucker," she added, concerned now, "he’s not monologuing." The boy- Tucker stiffened, his gaze snapping to Tim like he was reevaluating him.

"Weird," he muttered, then glanced over his shoulder toward Fentonworks. "We need to get away from here, Val. Now."

Tim let Tucker grab his arm and haul him upright. "C’mon," he urged, voice low but urgent. "Before the ghost hunters show up." Tim let himself be pulled along for a few steps before digging in his heels just enough to slow them down.

"Ghost hunters?" he repeated, "is that a bad thing?".

"Yes," Val said at the same time Tucker said "No".

They exchanged a heavy, unimpressed look.

"No," Val corrected while Tucker amended "Yes." The girl, Val, looked like she wanted to pull her hair out.

Tim frowned. "…That’s not helping."

Tucker sighed, adjusting his glasses. "Look, for so-called scientists, the Fentons don’t do much testing of their hypotheses. They came up with most of their conclusions about ghosts in college, before they ever met one and their enthusiasm is…" He trailed off.

Val cut in, arms crossed. "Fenton tech is great. Fenton aim is not. Fenton driving is downright criminal. And heaven help you if they think you need to be decontaminated." She shook her head, scowling. "They hurt more people than the ghosts. And half the time, the things they’re hunting wouldn’t hurt anyone in the first place."

Tim absorbed that. Noted the bitterness. The tension in their postures. The way neither of them quite met his eyes when they talked about the Fentons like… like they were speaking from experience.

But he focused on what was most pressing. "This Technus," he said. "How dangerous is he?"

Tucker snorted. "Mostly just a pain in the ass. Gets into systems, won’t leave, eats up processing power. A haunted smart fridge is just annoying—but a haunted air traffic control system? Not so much."

"Haunted technology can be unpredictable," Val added. "Sometimes it’s easier to just scrap it and start over from scratch."

Tim hummed. Not ideal. Control of communication channels was strategically significant no matter how Tucker and Val were downplaying it.

"If you really need a phone," Tucker offered, already digging into his bag, "you can borrow my PDA."

He handed over a homemade device roughly the size of a small tablet. It was a Frankenstein’s monster of parts—custom casing, reinforced wiring, multiple connection ports. It looked more like a field engineer’s workstation than a normal person’s phone.

As Tim took it, he noticed the barely restrained excitement on Tucker’s face. The kind of energy he’d seen before—at Waynetech trade shows, at R&D conferences. He hadn't introduced himself but the two teens hadn't actually asked his name yet either. Somehow in the middle of nowhere Illinois Tim had bumped into a fan.

He felt the corner of his mouth twitch but suppressed the reaction, instead examining the device. "You made this yourself?"

"Yep," Tucker said, practically vibrating.

"And it’s…" Tim turned it over, inspecting the soldering around the USB port. "Safe?"

"The trick," Tucker said, grinning, "is to incorporate ecto into the CPU, RAM, and SIM cards. Quadruple redundancy on the logic gates, like you’d build for equipment meant to withstand cosmic energy."

"Hm." Tim filed that information away, then opened the 'PDA' and signed into the email attached to his current alias. He drafted a quick message:

Amy,

Found holes in the housing market in Amity. See previous sales data 3.03.19.

-Alvin

Then sent it to Amy Beddoes, an old Oracle alias she should still be monitoring. The date corresponded to his trip to the Bleed. It should be enough to get the message through without raising suspicion.

The device pinged almost immediately but the alert wasn't from Oracle.

Jazz Fenton: Meet at City Hall ASAP. Mayoral press conference @ noon.

"You know Jasmine Fenton?" Tim asked, surprised.

Tucker hesitated. "Eh, yeah? Why?" Val and Tucker exchanged another look.

"I was just gonna check in on her and her brother," Tim added casually, glancing over his shoulder at the looming Ops Center above the nearby brownstones. "Make sure they were doing alright after moving out."

The suspicion in their eyes deepened.

Tim half-shook the PDA as he handed it back, forcing a small, sheepish smile. "The mayor’s announcement sounds interesting, too. Maybe I’ll tag along. See what’s up."

Tucker raised an eyebrow, but Val just sighed. "Your funeral," she muttered.

Tim smiled. Not today. 

---

John slumped into a barstool, rolling his shoulders as he pulled a glowing green vial from his pocket. ‘Ecto.’

He hadn’t even realized he’d stolen it. That was concerning. Not the theft itself—he’d lifted his first pack of cigarettes at age nine—but the fact that he hadn't thought about it. He’d pickpocketed a teenage girl, absently swiping something from Manson’s bag on the walk to Nasty Burger, and neither of them had even noticed. Something like that should’ve sent both of them tumbling out of the synchronicity wave. Instead, he'd acted on full auto-piolet and reality had held steady. Like he'd always been going to steal it.

He set the vial down on the sticky countertop and ordered a shot of whiskey. The hipster bartender eyed him, gaze snagging on the glowing vial, but ultimately didn’t say a word.

That said something about this town, didn’t it?

John knocked back the whiskey in one practiced motion, then poured a small amount of ecto into the empty glass.

The liquid moved strangely, clinging to the bottom rather than pooling properly. A trick of the light? Or something worse?

Time to find out.

Step one. Containment.

John pulled out a sharpie, grabbed a napkin, doodled a pentacle on it, and set the shot glass in the center. No outside interference. No extra variables.

Step two. Poke it with a stick. Mystically speaking.

He nudged the circle with a pulse of power. No reaction. Still smelled like concentrated death and zombie snot. He went ahead and poked it with the tip of his pen too just to be thorough. Sticky.

Step three. Breathe on it.

A mist curled up from the surface, green-tinged and faintly phosphorescent. Inconclusive.

Step four. A little chant, a whisper of old words that made the air vibrate.

Now that was interesting. This wasn’t just some stray bit of necrotic energy—as he suspected it was from the Bleed. It had structure, a biological quality he’d only ever seen in places the Green and the Rot intersected. Life and death, tangled together in an ugly little knot.

Step five?

John scratched his chin, eyes narrowing. Ah, sod it.

He fished a safety pin from his pocket, pricked his thumb, and let a single drop of blood fall into the glass.

It didn’t sink. Instead, the drop floated on the surface, a tight red bead twitching and vibrating like a fly caught in a web. It drifted toward the edge, hit the glass, and stuck—climbing ever so slightly up the side as if it wanted nothing to do with the ecto at all.

Well. That was new.

Was that the human blood? The wizard blood? The demon blood? The druid blood? Or was it just because he’d died a few times? Too many damn variables. He’d need to test this on someone else.

His fingers curled around the shot glass. Or… He could be reckless.

That seemed to be the theme of the past few days.

Mercury, Ritchie, Ivy, Gem—bloody hell, even Agent K had some mud to sling. It was like someone had flipped through the highlights reel of his worst failures and decided to make a playlist. There were still gaps, still ghosts he hadn’t seen yet, but the pattern of painful nostalgia was clear.

The thing about grief, real grief, is that it has limits. People don’t like to admit that, but it’s true. After enough loss, even the personal becomes statistical. And magic? Magic always has a price. Lose enough people, burn through enough of yourself, pay the bloody fucking price? Right about when you shouldn't be trusted with power anymore, that's when practitioners started to get really powerful.

Just ask the rest of the Trenchcoat Brigade. They had come together to give that Harry Potter knockoff Tim Hunter an intervention back in the day.

John prided himself on being the one who hadn’t tried to end the world before the kid got the chance to do it himself. Mr. E had gone off the deep end, wound up tangled in the Cult of the Cold Flame. The Phantom Stranger wasn’t even a proper wizard anymore— more like a vengeful god. And the rest?

Dead. Or worse.

But that’s just it, isn’t it?

He doesn’t think about this shit. Yet here he was. Drinking, reminiscing, slipping up.

Manson had accused him of being a liar and instead of lying about it he'd given something like a straight answer about Kenny Nelson. Poor kid. He had killed his childhood bully with a lie. It had just taken a few extra years for the child's initial panic to settle into despair and ferment into suicide.

Sidetracked again.

Something was wrong with reality. It wasn’t just gut instinct. It wasn’t just paranoia.

Something was off-kilter, and it was messing with him.

Something tied to the little green glass in front of him.

Before he could talk himself out of it, John did the reckless thing. He knocked back the shot of ecto.

 

It burned all the way down.

 

---

Deep in the Ghost Zone, where time frayed and rewove itself like tangled thread, a shadow flickered over a keyboard. Ghostwriter’s fingers moved in an effortless rhythm, spectral ink staining the page with words that twisted and curled like smoke.

Behind him, the air stirred. Something vast shifted in the stillness, pressing against the fabric of the space, waiting. Watching.

"How goes your work, Ghostwriter?"

The voice was steady. Unhurried. It did not echo, yet it filled the chamber completely.

Ghostwriter didn’t flinch, though his fingers twitched at the keys. He knew better than to be startled. Instead, he let out a slow breath, as if he’d been expecting the visitor all along.

"Oh, it’s not poetry," he said, tone wry. "So far, it’s barely legible drivel. But it’s what you commissioned."

A pause. The air thickened, pressing in, stretching the moment.

"And the lesson?"

Ghostwriter hesitated. Just for a fraction of a second.

"It’s slow," he admitted. "But yes. As you asked, the wizard will suffer the one indignity you believe will break him. Before the story ends, he will be known. His pain, his weakness, his shortcomings—laid bare for all to see. The spell is in motion. It cannot be stopped."

He risked a glance upward, his hands stilling on the keyboard.

"May I ask why?"

Silence.

Ghostwriter swallowed. He pressed on, though his voice was softer now, almost careful.

"It makes a decent diversion, but it’s unrelated to your work on the Council. The Observants would surely object." He hesitated. "This feels… personal."

Slowly, Ghostwriter turned.

The figure was waiting. Hooded, ageless, eyes gleaming with the weight of centuries. Something that had always been.

"Why did you commission this?" Ghostwriter whispered.

Clockwork smiled.

And then—he told him.

Ghostwriter had heard many stories in his time. He had written many stories. But this?

This was something else entirely.

The words unraveled what he thought he knew about his universe.

And the gossip was so good that his hands ached to capture it, to weave it into the fabric of the tale, to etch it into the very bones of existence.

Because what had been commissioned was only a fraction of the puzzle. That story was derivative. It had already been told elsewhere.

But the better story?

The better story was Clockwork himself.

The glow of the monitor pulsed. The air hummed with something vast and unspoken.

 

Because even Time bends to story.

Notes:

Sources include 'Titans Vol 3 Into the Bleed' and 'Fright Before Christmas.'

The scene with Clockwork is me doing the crossover thing and deciding that two poorly defined pieces of lore are actually the same thing if they take place in the same universe. Clockwork has a Hellblazer backstory now. Clockwork shared his Hellblazer backstory with Ghost Writer. More will be revealed.

Sorry for the slower updates. Work life has been stressful.
My actual top five things I did this week includes writing this for you.

Tagged: the author needs a hug

Chapter 17: What is love?

Summary:

In which Chantinelle has a few things to say on the subject of John Constantine.

Notes:

Remember that phone call Superman made?

The November night was falling fast in Brixton on the far side of the world from Amity Park as Ellie, Chantinelle, Triskele's daughter, knocked on a door.

She had chosen a sensible outfit; raven-dark hair, lily-white skin, ruby-red lips. She wore a cliché checklist of beauty, her face a cookie-cutter cartoon princess with the corners sharpened. Workplace casual slacks and a blouse, an afterthought to the ensemble. The top buttons of her shirt were casually undone drawing the eye. She wore her skin as an invitation, right down to the tips of her toes.

There were things she needed to do, things she wanted to say. It had been a while since she had indulged in vengeance, she wanted to enjoy this.

She had also brought a bottle of wine. For redundancy.

The door opened a crack.

Epiphany Constantine née Greaves had always been a tiny mouse of a girl, no matter how many piercings she collected or how often she changed the color of her hair. Tonight, she answered the door in a stained lab coat and safety goggles, her fingers smudged with something off-white.

“Ellie?” She blinked, then frowned slightly. “God, it’s been years. How are you these days?”

Chantinelle twisted the bottle in her hands, rolled her shoulders inward, and widened her eyes, projecting something fragile—vulnerability, desperation, a woman out of options. She, like her sisters, was very good at making people want to help her. 

“I need a favor,” she murmured. “Is John in?”

Epiphany huffed a short laugh. “Pretty sure he’s off-world fighting abstract concepts again. He hasn’t been by in months.” she scratched at the dried stain on her lab coat. “Is it something I can help with?”

Ellie hesitated, shifting her weight as if the words were too heavy to bear. “It’s… delicate. Intimate. I don’t know if you can help, but I don’t—I don’t know if it can wait.” She exhaled sharply, then held up the wine with a small, self-deprecating smile. “I, uh… I brought wine?”

She vaguely wished it were raining. This shirt would look amazing in the rain.

Epiphany’s frown deepened, then softened. “Hey now. None of that.” She reached up, pushing her goggles onto her forehead. “If I can’t sort it, we’ll find someone who can. The folks at the Tate Club are knobheads, but they’re always trying to curry favor and Clarice still owes me. That old bat can move mountains if you come at her with the right leverage. Come in and tell me what’s wrong.”

She opened the door wide.

Ellie stepped inside, letting her body brush lightly against Epiphany’s as she passed. A feather-light touch—enough to be felt but not acknowledged. Her heels clicking softly against the worn floorboards. The apartment was small and cramped, filled with the sharp scent of chlorine and cloves.

Ellie took a delicate sniff. “Have you been brewing in here?”

Epiphany shrugged, moving toward the kitchen and washing her hands. “I’ve got a separate lab across town, but when it’s late, I just…”

“Yeah.” Ellie nodded. “I get it. It’s hard to turn off.”

“Let me make some tea.”

“No, no need.”

Like hell she was going to accept a drink from this poisonous little bitch. But she kept her tone soft, her expression carefully composed, all leading toward the moment she was building to. Luring her in.

“I guess—I guess I can show you the problem?” Ellie swallowed, feigning hesitation. “It’s my scars.”

She made her hands tremble as she unbuttoned her blouse. Nudity wasn’t a problem for her kind, but she wanted the vulnerability to be believable. And this? This was the closest thing to weakness she had.

She hadn’t worn a bra. She didn’t need one, and the extra step would have hindered the reveal. She turned, hunching slightly to conceal her chest. She pulled her hair aside, exposing the jagged faded scars marring her back. For once, she didn’t glamour the damage.

A slow inhale behind her. Then, after a pause, cool, feather-light fingers traced the sigils engraved in her flesh.

“I—” Epiphany’s voice faltered. “What am I looking at? It’s healing well, but it’s… powerful. I could make a salve, have the cosmetic damage cleaned up in a day or two, but the underlying wound…” Her fingers pressed a little more firmly, mapping the lines. “You might be marked for life.”

Ellie let a little honest relief seep into her voice. “Good. That was the point. I was worried it might be healing too fast. It won’t last forever. I knew that going in. When the surface scars started to finally fade, I thought it might be weakening.”

Epiphany’s touch lingered. “Who did this?”

Ellie turned her head slightly, voice a deadpan whisper. “You know who did this.”

A beat.

Epiphany swallowed. "Okay then," Epiphany said, fingers pressing more firmly now, tracing, searching. "Why? What’s this sigil doing that’s so important you need it carved into your soul?"

Ellie let her head dip, as if reluctant. “It’s a scrying ward,” she admitted. “I’m invisible to anyone who tries to find me. Heaven. Hell. Pantheons and patrons all. I just… I got to walk away.”

The fingers on her back paused as the alchemist spotted the loophole “With one exception.”

“With one exception.” Ellie let her breath hitch. “I light up bright as day for John. It’s his mark. So he can find me. Always.” She hesitated, then turned further to catch Epiphany’s gaze. “Is that okay? You’re his wife, after all.”

Epiphany sighed, pulling her hands away. “It’s been an open relationship from the beginning.”

Ellie let out a soft, bitter laugh. “It would have to be. But really, Epiphany, we’re not like that. I don’t have enough friends to stay mad at the ones I do have. I’m not here to steal your man. He’s the only person who likes me for me.” She gave a half-smile. “Mostly, what we do is crime. Mostly, what I have for him is loyalty.”

Epiphany’s lips twitched, but her fingers ghosted over the scars again, slower this time. More curious and completely unnecessary. Touching for the sake of touching.

“This ward seems excessive,” she murmured. “It’s got to be painful. A constant reminder.”

Ellie hummed. “It’s deep, but it has to be.” She let her head dip, leaning into the touch. “The first time he tried something like this, it was a control sigil on a fuckpig. Souls heal. He didn't go deep enough and it only lasted three years. Then that thing inside Ronnie Cooper was free to do whatever it wanted. This had to be deeper.”

The alchemist shook her head. “This isn’t a ward —it’s a brand.”

Ellie’s smile was thin. “He gave me a choice,” she said. “And I didn't have very many options. It's the part that came before that hurts. When I got backed into a corner. Still. I can’t blame him for making the wrong call with incomplete information. There are surprisingly few sins that will get you marked for death by both Heaven and Hell. Fewer truly neutral parties to mediate between the two. Tali and I asked for refuge. It’s not John’s fault angels showed up when he was expecting demons.” 

She turned further in Epiphany's arms, facing her fully and making intense eye contact as she spoke.

“They took my baby and killed the father, out of Righteousness. It wasn't his fault, but no one does guilt like Constantine. This ward might be excessively redundant but it's what I needed from the start. Yes, it hurts, but this gives me my freedom. If I can’t have my family, then at least one of us can escape. I’m pretty sure my sister Gloria died begging for this."  

Epiphany blinked. "Gloria?"  

Ellie nodded. "The demon heart you received as a wedding gift?"  

"Oh. That." Epiphany's expression barely flickered. "I never got the whole story. It just showed up in the icebox one day. I think that might have been the moment when body parts in the house became my new normal."  

"Typical. The man has a type."  

"Kickass?"  

Ellie smirked and prepared to turn the knife. "Hmm. No. More than that— seems to me he somehow managed to marry the same woman twice." 

"I am nothing like Rosacarnis." Epiphany defended.

“Aren’t you?” her voice was silk and steel. She leaned closer, tilting her head as if studying a specimen under glass. “Let me tell you a story.”  

Epiphany stiffened but didn’t pull away.  

“Rosa was a prepubescent demonling when she first laid eyes on John,” Ellie murmured. “Nergal had been a strict father, shaping her into a tool to further his dukedom in Hell. She saw a handsome man working alongside her father—getting the better of him at every turn—and decided she wanted a pet wizard of her own.”  

Chantinelle let the words settle, watching for the flicker in Epiphany’s expression before continuing.  

“So, she spent years, maybe centuries in time-dilated hellscapes, growing and crafting the perfect plan to make John Constantine hers. And for a while, it worked. They spent a couple of decades—subjectively, at least—happily married while she wore the faces of the women he actually loved.”  

Epiphany’s fingers curled into fists at her sides.  

“Then he woke up,” Ellie said, voice soft and sharp all at once. “And he killed her for it.”  

A muscle twitched in Epiphany’s jaw, but she said nothing.  

Ellie’s smirk widened. “Terry Greaves was about as much of a monster as a man can be while still technically human,” she continued, lowering her voice. “He wanted you to learn magic to commodify you. To sell your work. To sell you.”  

Epiphany’s breath hitched.  

“You were fourteen when you saw exactly what Rosa saw—a powerful man who could control your powerful father. Power that could be yours for the right price.”  

Ellie leaned in, breath warm against Epiphany’s ear. She could feel the shudder that ran through her.  

“Matching dreams of power. Except you actually pulled it off.”  

Epiphany swallowed hard.  

Ellie smiled, slow and cruel. “Tell me, Ms. Constantine,” she purred, fingers tracing the collar of the lab coat, “what do you think your man is going to do when he wakes up this time?” 

 "You’re wrong." Epiphany’s voice was barely above a whisper. "It doesn't matter how it started. I love him. He loves me. I never—I never—I’m not—"  

Ellie’s fingers traced slow, deliberate circles against Epiphany’s hip.  

"What is love?" she murmured. "Do you think it’s something you can bottle and brew?"  

Epiphany’s breath hitched again. "Like you have any right to lecture me on free will."  

Ellie laughed, low and bitter.  

"I loved my angel, Tali. Real love. I corrupted him, and he redeemed me, and we ran as far and as fast as we could. They chased us across the edge of reality and back again. I lost everything because—" Her grip tightened enough to bruise the tender flesh beneath it. "My. Sin. Was. Love."  

She captured Epiphany’s lips in a molten kiss, pressing her body flush against her own—  

Epiphany didn’t pull away.  

Chantinelle smiled against her mouth.

“If you loved him. Really loved him. I wouldn't be able to do this.”

She slipped off the lab coat and began to finger the hem of her shirt. She kept her body pressed close as she undressed her victim. Her lips brushed Epiphany’s ear, her voice liquid honey.

“You don’t know what love is.” Her nails scraped lightly against the nape of the smaller woman's neck—

“You will never have what I had. You are going to die tonight knowing precisely what love isn’t.” A soft moan—

"You are going to beg me for more.” She kissed the trembling woman’s jaw—

“And then? Then I’m going to throw whatever is left of your pathetic soul into the pit with your thrice-damned father.”

Epiphany shuddered; eyes wide, desperate. “He’ll come for me. He’s done it before—”

Ellie laughed against her skin.

“He might have tried a decade ago. But let’s be honest—his track record was spotty even then.”

She gripped Epiphany’s chin, tilting her face up.

“No, darling,” she murmured. “You’re going to hell and you’re staying there.”

She smiled, slow and cruel.

“Because in the end, John Constantine never loved you.”

Epiphany struggled to breath her last lucid words—

“He'll never forgive you”

The succubus’s smile widened.

 

“I don't need him to.”

 

---

 

Three hours later Chantinelle sauntered away from the burning building, clothing disheveled, casually swigging directly from her open wine bottle.

It had started to rain.

As expected, the blouse looked fantastic wet and clinging to her body in the firelight.

Epiphany had been right. She might never be forgiven for this, but by her calculations it was worth it. Ellie wasn't sure her friend could bare to kill yet another person he had cared for so deeply.

As for the Demon? The only thing she was going to lose sleep over was how long it took her to notice.

 

She really did owe Mr. Kent that favor.

 

Notes:

Sources include the entire Garth Ennis run but particularly Guys & Dolls (#59-61) with brief mention of the fuckpig from 'Son of Man' (129-133) and Gloria's heart from Bloody Carnations.
Title from the music video to the song 'What is Love' which is literally about questioning a magical compulsion and trying/failing to shake off a mystic predator.

I had meant to post more about Amity Park this week, but the muses snuck up on me and I needed to follow up with Chantinelle.

It's a real shame that John didn't want to elaborate about having kids during time dilation to Gemma and she didn't want to listen. They were SO close to actually talking about what it means to have sex with someone wearing the wrong face last chapter. But no. She gets to stay bitter.

Further character descriptions from user QuiQuaeQuod:

Ellie (Chantinelle) is a succubus that eloped with an angel. They had a baby together and upper management on both sides got upset. Ellie's family came to John as a neutral third party. Unfortunately, it all went badly. The angel is dead, heaven took the baby, and Ellie is more or less in hiding.

Rosa (Rosacarnis) was a demon and the daughter of Nergal, one of John's most persistent enemies. John, being John, has had to work with Nergal occasionally but it almost always works out in Nergal's worst interest. (...) Rosa ended up tricking John into a series of dreamlike false realities where she pretended to be his former love interests. They spent several years together in a single day (there were time shenanigans) and had three kids who were all monstrous in their own rights. John didn't kill any of them directly, but hell's upper management killed Rosa and two of the kids, because they were going to kill John and upper management felt that it would be "too meaningful" for John to die that way.

Ellie took some creative liberty to say John killed Rosa. She's lying to scare her victim and she knows John would have killed his deamon wife given the chance.

Chapter 18: Reunion

Summary:

In which team phantom is too busy hugging to have much to say on the subject of John Constantine.

"American gambling is awful."

Constantine groaned, slumping against the bar. He'd spent most of his life 'self employed' by taking odd jobs and manipulating chance for profit. These days he was leaning more heavily on his other, less sustainable income stream.

Blackmail.

Blackmail was always tricky. He'd waited three decades to reel this big fish in at the right moment. Unfortunately it seemed his mark might have grown a spine recently. Ironic that. 

So here he was, trying to find a decent game in the American Midwest.

"Pick 5? It’s just numbers. How am I supposed to have a favorite number? It’s got no name, it’s got no story." He waved a hand vaguely. "I’d much rather back a nag on a rags-to-riches run. Show up on some jockey’s lucky day and cheer ‘em across the line. How am I supposed to cheer for numbers? Doesn’t have the poetry of Pearling Path or Valiant Force."

The bartender—a tall man with a meticulously groomed beard and a flannel shirt—leaned on the polished wood. "Hey now," he said, pushing a pint glass toward John with the practiced ease of someone who’d done this a thousand times. "Illinois has the Hawthorne Race Course outside Chicago. You just need to go online or hit up one of the betting bars north of here. It’s the oldest sports betting establishment in America—over 130 years old."

John rolled the glass between his hands, skeptical. "Am I supposed to be impressed? Pretty sure the Royal Mews predates plumbing."

A burst of laughter from down the bar. Another patron—a stocky man with a scarred knuckle and the look of someone who worked construction—leaned over. "There’s always the ghost pool," he suggested with a grin.

"Shush." A red-haired woman at the end of the bar gave him a glare. "The lottery commission will hear you."

John arched an eyebrow. "Ghost pool?"

"No law against a community betting pool, worst thing they can do is call us crazy" the man said, lowering his voice conspiratorially. "Put money on the next Phantom sighting. It’s been a month? Two? So the pot’s at, what—300k?"

John’s interest sharpened. "What’s the buy-in?"

"It’s just for fun," the bartender shrugged. "It's supposed to be low stakes, like an ice classic or a duck derby. Buck fifty for an hour time slot, and everyone who guesses correctly splits the pot."

"Can I post more than once on the same hour?"

"Nah," the scarred man said, shaking his head. "But you can add a prop bet to the hour to double your payout. Folks usually try to call who he’s fighting. Keeps things interesting."

John drummed his fingers on the bar. "Can I do that here or…?"

"Sure can," the bartender said, pulling out a notepad and a battered touchscreen.

"Alright, let’s see…" John fished a crumpled twenty pound note from his pocket, glared at it and tried again. "He’s overdue, right? Put me down for the next six hours with a proposition of—hm—let’s say long hair. If he’s been gone that long, it’s probably grown out." He slipped the correct currency across the bar.

The bartender’s lips curled at the edge. "It’s your dollar. Personally, I wouldn’t put money on a ghost changing its appearance, but I’ve seen wilder predictions. At this point, we’d accept an obvious dare-for-money scheme from the ghost hunters just to make sure he’s okay."

A dare-for-money where the gambler directly influenced the outcome? Nice to know he wouldn't be accused of cheating this time.

"Let me get you settled up and write that ticket for you," the bartender said, tearing off a slip of paper.

In the moment while he was waiting, John felt a sharp pinch in his gut.

Time for some navel-gazing.

He closed his eyes, breathing evenly as he took stock of himself.

The United Kingdom loved its Christian pantheon, but Constantine was well-traveled. He’d let other practices color his worldview over the years—it was useful. There were ten thousand things that would eat you whether you believed in them or not, but belief cut both ways and almost always made those things much more punchable. Sometimes that belief came with tools, too.

There, in the core of his body just behind and slightly above his belly button, sat his Manipura chakra—a glittering flower of energy.

It made sense that the glowing green goo he’d ingested had slipped into the reservoir closest to the digestive system, but it should’ve spread, dissolved, or been torn apart by his uncooperative blood by now.

Instead, it had settled in. Interesting.

It had an affinity for the soul-space tied to transformation, willpower, and confidence—except now it was dangerously off-center. That’s what the pain had been. Manipura was circled by a wall of distraction—the vritti thoughts. The ecto was sloshing into them.

Because?—ah

Because he’d been drinking. Like an idiot.

The bartender was talking again, something about American tipping culture, but John wasn’t really listening. He slid a few more crumpled bills toward the man and pocketed the betting slip.

The whiskey and beer churned in his gut. He stumbled toward the door in a slightly more altered state of mind than intended, a heavy burn twisting beneath his ribs.

John gritted his teeth and tried to work out how to get rid of the stuff before it did any damage. Some of the vritti were awful.

"Brilliant idea. Just brilliant."

---

 

Across the courtyard from City Hall, Jazz spotted Danny first. A flash of white hair under a red beanie, his head bent toward Sam as they threaded their way through the press of bodies.

Her breath stopped. 

It had been weeks. Weeks of sleepless nights, of unanswered questions and gnawing guilt. And now here he was — hair longer, the shadows under his eyes deeper — but whole. Alive. Alive-ish. 

“Danny?” Her voice barely made it past her lips. 

He lifted his head, eyes widening as they locked onto hers. For a moment, he was frozen, and then his face broke wide open. He stepped eagerly toward her — then slowed at Sam’s hand on his arm, a silent reminder. Too many people. Too much attention. 

Jazz pushed through the crowd. Her hands were shaking, but it didn’t matter because Danny was reaching for her, and suddenly he was right there, solid under her fingertips. 

“Jazz,” he breathed.

Her arms wrapped around him before she even realized she’d moved. He was tense, trembling beneath her hands, and when she felt his tears against her shoulder, her chest tightened. 

“I thought—” Her voice broke. “I didn’t know if—”

“I’m here,” Danny said softly. His arms tightened around her. “I’m okay.” 

That was a lie. Jazz could feel the way he trembled like he was trying to hold himself together. He was cool to the touch. There had to be a reason he was walking around in his ghost form and civilian cloths. Had he died? 

Tucker’s voice cut in from behind her. “Holy shit.” 

Jazz pulled back enough to see Tucker and Valerie pushing through the crowd, a dark haired young man at their heels. Tucker’s mouth was open, his eyes wide behind his glasses. Valerie looked like she was trying not to cry. 

Danny’s gaze darted toward them, uncertainty flashing in his eyes. Then Tucker was there, grabbing his hand and clapping him on the back hard enough to make Danny flinch. 

“Dude, you’re alive,” Tucker said, laughing shakily. “You’re actually alive.”

Valerie didn’t say anything. She just pulled him in, one hand on the back of his neck, her jaw tight with barely restrained emotion. Danny sagged under the weight of it, his breath shaking as he leaned into the contact. 

Jazz caught the stranger’s gaze over Danny’s shoulder as she sank further into the group hug. His expression was hard to read, but his eyes were sharp — taking everything in. A rumpled woman stood behind Sam, arms crossed, watching the reunion with quiet disinterest. 

“Hey.” Danny’s voice was rough when he pulled back. His eyes were glassy, his smile a little crooked. “I missed you guys.”

Tucker’s hand tightened on his shoulder. Valerie’s arm stayed around his back. Sam wrapped herself around the outside of huddled clump.

Jazz swallowed hard. She wasn’t sure whether she wanted to cry or scream or demand to know more — but none of that mattered right now. He was here. He was home. 

Whatever came next, they could face it together.

 

---

Gemma Masters was pretty sure she was related to the Mayor of Amity Park somehow.

Sam Manson had asked a number of pointed questions about her family name after her uncle stormed off. Gemma had stopped trying to believe in coincidence around the time she turned ten. Some small, accusatory part of her wondered what her life would have been like with a rich American cousin to bail her dad out of financial trouble. 

Or maybe she’d had one all along? 

Tony Masters had spent more years unemployed than not. It was entirely possible that they’d had some unmentioned supplemental income beyond the Cult of the Resurrection Crusade.

Either way, the sharp-dressed mayor was giving her bad vibes.

Gemma stood near the edge of the open square across from city hall, arms crossed, watching from the crowd as Vlad Masters unveiled a new city-sponsored ghost-hunting team. A sleek banner dropped behind him, the words "Master Blasters" emblazoned in bold black and red.

Kids. They were kids. Lined up behind Mayor Masters in matching body armor, hands clasped in front of them like they were about to receive a high school award.

Kids to fight monsters.

She felt disgusted. She felt nauseous. She felt— she felt something gross in the air behind her left shoulder.

Gemma spun, hand already moving. She felt a sharp pop of displaced energy as her fingers closed around something squirming and forced it to be solid. With a smooth motion, she yanked it into reality and slammed it into the concrete. Feathers scattered in a green-tinged burst of ghostly energy.

A fucking green vulture. Twitching on the pavement, its beady eyes dull and confused.

"No," Gemma hissed. "Goddamnit. No. No more supernatural bullshit."

The hugging teens barely reacted, too caught up in the reunion. Gemma stared at the bird, breath coming fast and sharp. Her nails dug into her palms.

It didn’t matter that the apparent eye of the storm was the only safe place she'd found from the massive reality-cracking psychic backlash she'd been suffering all week. She was done with this.

"I have got to get out of this fucking town," she grumbled.

A voice answered lazily. "What you’ve got to do is stop fighting it, love."

Gemma’s head snapped toward the sound.

"Go away. I'm fine," she bit out through clenched teeth.

"Really?" John Constantine’s gaze slid down to the crumpled bird, then back at her. His mouth twitched. "I've never seen a Praexis demon that actually looked like a vulture before."

"It's not a demon. It's one of their fucked-up ghost things."

Her uncle gave a dismissive little wave and slightly slurred, "I'm starten' to think that two things can be true."

He nudged the bird with his toe, "Manipura is for transformation. Familiar faces. New tricks."

 

Notes:

Apologies to any accidental mischaracterization of the chakra system. If I get anything wrong I blame it on Milligan for poorly defining Hinduism in the Hellblazer universe.

I promise I will eventually explain who John is blackmailing and why. I suspect that at least a few of you already know.

In the meantime a gambling vocabulary lesson:

• Pearling Path and Valiant Force were both horses with long shot wins on British race tracks. Either one of them would have represented a years income for our resident magician.
• Pick 5 is a self descriptive game of chance run by the Illinois lottery commission.
• An Ice Classic is when you gamble on the exact hour when a body of water will thaw. The most famous one is in Nanana Alaska but readers might recognize the setup from American Gods.
• A Duck Derby is where a city fills a river with rubber ducks and people bet on which one will float down stream fastest. Usually for charity.
• A prop bet or proposition bet is any situational bet other than the direct outcome of a game. 'Krum gets the Snitch' would be a familiar example.
• A dare-for-money is a derogatory term for when a prop bet is influenced by the gambler. An example might be 'there will be a streaker at halftime' but someone decides to get naked to make sure they win the bet. This happened during Superbowl LV in 2021.
• A Death Pool is a game where people try to guess who will die in a given year. This is where Deadpool gets his name. Ironically, in Marvel comics Deadpool isn't allowed to participate in death pools anymore because of the dare-for-money thing. Some death pools include prop bets for cause of death.

The Amity Park Ghost Pool is being operated like a mix of an Ice Classic and a Death Pool.

Most American gambling is boring. Small town American gambling is *weird.* My favorite is when they make a grid on the bottom of an animal enclosure and take bets on where it will shit first.

Good times.

Chapter 19: We should riot

Summary:

In which Gemma Masters has a few more things to say on the subject of John Constantine.

John Constantine leaned up against Tim Drake, his face covered in fading bruises, trench coat hanging off him at odd angles. The young man, for his part, looked somewhere between irritated and resigned.

"Hullo, Gotham," Constantine drawled at him, slinging an arm fully around the younger mans shoulders.

‘Gotham’ gave an exasperated glare. "My name is Alvin Draper."

"Sure, sure. Whatever you want." Constantine’s eyes gleamed. "Spread herself too thin anyway, didn’t she? She made what— a dozen of you?"

He stiffened under the wizard. "What?"

"Map." Constantine’s voice was slippery, eyes half-lidded as he swayed. "Now there’s a real city avatar. Decent bloke. Would kick your ass."

"Map died," Gemma whispered to herself, irritated.

Constantine ignored her. "Hear me, kid? Map of London would. Kick. Your. Ass."

Alvins jaw twitched. "Okay? Do you need to sit down before you fall down?"

Constantine didn’t answer. He lifted his hand, palm up. A marble-sized ball of crackling green energy gathered between his fingers. "That's the trick 'ennit,'" He muttered turning the ball over, inspecting it with mild interest. Then, without ceremony, he lobbed it across the square.

It splashed harmlessly against Vlad Masters face .

There was a collective gasp from the crowd. The teens around them stared in shock.

"What the hell?" Tim hissed. "Why?"

"Can’t not." Constantine gave a loose shrug, his weight still on Tim's shoulder. "Tradition. Didn’t have any fruit did I?"

Gemma sighed in resignation as the Master Blasters flew out on hover boards looking around frantically for the source of the attack. "He’s right."

"What?"

She nodded toward Constantine, voice cool. "It’s a public speech." She said as if that was a perfectly reasonable explanation. "He’s not just a heckler—he’s the heckler. It’s a whole cursed bloodline impulse control thing. I suspect he literally can’t not fuck with people in power. He usually tries to be clever about it, though."

"Come on, Gem," Constantine whined. "Look at the smarmy git and tell me you don’t want to throw something. He’s probably a vampire or somethin’."

Tucker made a choking sound in the back of his throat.

"Aha!" Constantine perked up. "I’m right, aren’t I?  Vamps are always poncy scum."

"That’s Vlad," Danny cut in, sounding both annoyed and resigned. "My godfather? I told you about him."

"Oh." Constantine’s smile widened. "Well. Vampire ghost 's still vampire. Worse, he's a politician. I’m not apologizing."

He craned his neck toward the Mayor, "Bet he's a Tory too. We should riot."

Tim rubbed at his temples. "Vampire ghost? Do you know these people, John?"

"Do you know me?" The wizard’s smile sharpened. "Have we met, Alvin?"

Gemma rolled her eyes. "Throwing things is a terrible way to start civil unrest. You’ve got to use words."

"You do that." Constantine’s hand lifted, forming another small crackling orb. He tossed it lazily toward the stage but it landed on the ground and members of the press frantically dodged.

"Personally, I'll feel better after I get rid of this."

"I could destroy him in under thirty seconds." She huffed.

"Oh shit," Sam exclaimed, eyes widening as the Master Blasters spotted them through the crowd. "They definitely saw you that time. Hey, uh, should we run?"

"Nah." Constantine’s grinned "Give Gem a minute. Wanna see this. Go on, if you're the expert. Thirty seconds. Give it your best shot."

"Fine." Gemma turned an irate shade of pink. "I will."

She screwed her eyes shut. Her lips moved but the sound around her didn't seem to come from her mouth. She created a buzzing murmur beneath the rise and fall of the crowd’s noise. She held rigidly still. There was shift in the air. A ripple of energy building. A burr in the collective mood.

Then the whispers started:

"Children? It’s a team of children!?"

"Thrash is a stupid name—"

"Download is worse—"

"What the hell is teen technology?"

"Masters wants us paying for all this, then?"

"Seems shifty to me"

"Where are their parents?"

It spread across the crowd. Fast. A bad feeling traveling at the speed of rumor.

The Master Blasters lost the support of the city in the time it took for them to cross the square. 

They wouldn't ever get it back. 

Vlad suffered a hit to his reputation by association. People were questioning his judgement. Never a good thing for a politician. Not enough to destroy him but a good start.

It had happened in under thirty seconds, as promised.

Constantine’s smile deepened with obvious pride.

"Alvin, meet my niece Gemma. You can tell she's not a wizard by how she hates me and keeps insisting she isn't one. The kids are Danny, Sam, Jazz … um— Tucker and Valerie I think? We haven't met, but Danny mentioned them while we were unlawfully detained by fascists.”

He turned to them, ”I'm John Constantine. I know stuff. Reality is getting wobbly around here and–”

A glowing pink CD-ROM hit him in the back of the head.

Shame. He thought as he dropped to the ground like a narcoleptic puppet on cut strings. I'd almost gotten rid of all the ecto—

Everyone reacted;

The mismatched horde of young adults; Team Phantom plus one 'real-estate agent' from Gotham all sank into fighting stances in defense of the unconscious wizard. 

The Masters Blasters chanted what had to be a focus tested slogan:

“Masters Blasters Stop Disasters!”

Gemma Masters had finally had enough of this and backed away from the imminent fight. She gave her uncle a swift kick to the gut and she left.

---

 

Danny didn't transform so much as he stepped out of his outermost layer of clothes, revealing the new costume and letting the hat and jacket fall to the ground behind him as he became briefly intangible and moved forward to meet the threat.

His sister had just died.

It didn’t matter that he hadn’t known her very long. He knew her now. He had her memories, her experiences—but that wasn’t the same as having her. It wasn’t the same as seeing her smile or hearing her voice. He was mourning the future they’d lost.

His friends were here. That hug—warm and all-encompassing—had felt like it was softening the jagged edges just a little. Then these jerks had come and ruined it.

Constantine wasn’t moving, and Danny—
Danny wanted to hit something.

“Hello, misplaced aggression!”

---

Tim Drake reached for a concealed birdarang and hesitated. His eyes tracked Danny’s movements, calculating trajectories and outcomes.

Tucker Foley didn't like the look of that ghost hunting tech. His hand tightened on his PDA.

Sam Manson was pretty sure she knew how a mob worked. She had maybe three seconds to turn this around before the press latched onto the wrong story.

Valerie Gray wished she had more equipment. A wrist rocket and a Thermos wasn't enough. She crouched, ready to move.

Jasmine Fenton was too pissed to hesitate at all.

Jazz whipped her arm back and threw a boomerang. It sailed through the air in a clean arc and hit the girl closest to them, Vid in the face with a satisfying crack. The boomerang ricocheted, but it didn’t return.

Danny fired a blast—a surge of raw ectoplasm bigger and more dangerous than Constantine’s pathetic little ball of goo. He darted into the air, twisting mid-flight to catch the boomerang as it pivoted unnaturally on nothing.

Valerie got off a shot with her wrist launcher. Clipping Download across the side, making him wobble on his hoverboard.

Tucker’s PDA chimed as his fingers blurred across the screen.

Jazz extended a collapsed bolo stick, glowing with ecto. Valerie was already moving to close the distance, low and fast, angling toward Thrash’s exposed side.

Danny threw the boomerang again, and Sam—eyes flashing—scraped the unconscious vulture off the pavement.

Tucker’s PDA chimed once more, and three hoverboards crashed to the ground simultaneously as their systems shorted out.

Danny’s next blast missed and chipped the concrete crenellations behind his opponents, forcing the Blasters to dive for cover. Val swept Thrash’s legs out from under him as he scrambled to his feet. Vid made direct eye contact with Sam’s reinforced boot from ground level as the goth stepped into her line of sight—
—but tried diplomacy first.

"You absolute morons!" Sam’s voice sliced through the noise. "This isn’t just some ghost. This is Danny Phantom—the real teen hero of Amity."

She lifted the boneless vulture like a prize. Its limp head lolled toward the crowd. "He already got the ghost!"

A murmur rippled through the crowd. Discontent. Doubt. The kind of low-grade static that could become a full-on riot with the right push.

Sam jabbed a finger toward John Constantine, still unconscious on the pavement.

"You attacked an innocent bystander!" she shouted.

Danny rose higher into the air. His long white hair lifted slightly in the updraft. Looking for Vlad—
And unintentionally showing himself off.

The press had come out for the unveiling of the Masters Blasters, but now every camera was pointed at him.

"Phantom! Mr. Phantom!" one reporter shouted. "Can you comment on this attack on your person?"

"What about your prolonged absence?"

"Is it true that—"

The boomerang hit him in the back of the head.

Danny’s flight wobbled. A hush fell over the crowd.

Danny’s eye twitched. "Seriously?"

Jazz’s lips twitched upward. "To be fair, you did throw it last."

Notes:

Sources include Phantom Planet. I know this contradicts the earlier timeline end note where I said Phantom Planet was a fever dream but the episode was so bad that I can't help trying to fix certain elements of it. As a reminder: the three members of the Masters Blasters are canonically named Vid, Thrash, and Download. They fight ghosts with 'teen technology' which apparently includes using ecto infused CDs as ammunition? It's very dumb.

Map was first introduced as a relatively normal city worker who is more and more powerfully connected to the the city of London each time he appears. In the Spurrier run there's a brief phone conversation where Clarice Sackville tells John that Map died while he was away fighting Tim Hunter. It could be a case of 'no body no death' but in this scene John is using Map to illustrate that he knows how a place can interact with a person to create powerful beings. Like the batfamily.

I've mentioned Clarice in passing before. She's the elderly owner of the Tate club. A social club for magic users in London. John crashed their 200 year anniversary in 2005 to call them all childish idiots and summon an angry angel into the middle of the party.

Chapter 20: Secret Smiles

Summary:

In which Stephanie Brown has a few things to say on the subject of death traps.

Gemma fumed,

Where did her uncle get off egging her into crowd control? She hated that he’d been right. She did want to throw something at the mayor. She’d slipped into old habits so quickly. Like rereading a familiar book—

Like rereading Harry Potter.

She’d been in her twenties the first time, stubbornly ignoring the hype until the entire country wouldn’t shut up about it. Those books had wizards, and magical mentors, and dark lords, and plenty of other familiar tropes that hit too close to home. They weren’t what she'd related to.

No. Right at the beginning of the worlds most popular fantasy series, she'd recognized her mum.

Cheryl Constantine had done her best to be normal. Normal flat. Normal husband. Normal daughter. Normal life. Even when her kid brother repeatedly made national headlines as a magic wielding mass murderer, Cheryl had tried very hard not to notice. She had clearly loved her brother, but she had just as clearly never stopped caring about what the neighbors thought.

Gemma was 24 when she realized she had been raised by Dursleys.

Most Constantine's weren't locked into the family business. Her grandfather had also been a perfectly ordinary, if spiteful old man—until he'd followed her home from his own funeral, naked and wide-eyed, lurking in the spaces her parents couldn’t see.

Back when her uncle had still been her hero her mother had yelled and cried and never knew about the things the two of them had snuck out to do together— never knew that while Cheryl had stayed warm and safe in bed they had attended grandads real funeral.

John Constantine had always been proof that Gemma didn’t have to be a Dursley. He always said she was a Constantine and a Constantine didn’t have to be afraid of monsters. That the monsters would be afraid of her.

He never mentioned how much more damage the monsters did when they were afraid.

She'd had to learn that lesson the hard way.

It wasn't fair. The awful lineage of Kon-Sten-Tyn had skipped generations but landed right on her head at full force.

For a long time after she'd killed her uncle— after she'd thought she'd killed her uncle— she had worried that his murder was the reason why she was the way she was.

Had fate, or luck, or synchronicity, known she would kill him?

Could it be that there was only ever one true Constantine?

Could it be that her whole messed up childhood had been preparing her as a replacement? 

She'd tried to stop the cycle. She'd desperately tried to unmake the Laughing Magician by unmaking herself.

She had been wrong.

This was all happening so fast but one look at him and she knew. She hadn't ever been the Laughing Magician. She hadn't even scraped that power. She hadn't made some dramatic statement by hiding. She hadn't made herself safer.

She had just turned into her mother.

Gemma brushed her fingers against a pendent under her shirt. Her one magical artifact from before. She hadn't let herself think about the necklace near her uncle beyond what she had told him outside NastyBurger: He would be angry. He would steal it. She touched it and thought about the cost of magic.

Gemma exhaled sharply, clearing the thoughts away. She could reflect later. She was still leaving.

She had made it all the way to the eves of a nearby building when a small rock fell off the roof.

She caught it out of the air on reflex. The chunk of concrete fit her hand perfectly—the size, the weight, the sharpness of its edges. It must have been loosened by a stray energy blast in the recent fight,

Coincidence—

There is no such thing as coincidence.

Gemma stared at the rock in her hand for a long moment like it was a snake about to bite.

Magic.

Then she heard it. A resonant voice drifting around the corner, 

“Impossible, absolutely impossible, six weeks gone and I searched, I searched, and I would have felt him, I would have known, but he was just gone, just erased from the board, and now he’s here?"

Gemma peeked around the edge of the building. There was a blue tinted man hovering above the alley, fully distracted by events in the square. White suit. Red lined cape. Red eyes. Sharp teeth. Dramatic widows peak swooped so deep the rest of his hair stood on end. Same stupid little goatee as the mayor—

"Just like that? As if nothing happened? Reckless. Stupid. Just like always. He doesn’t think, he never thinks, never stops to consider the consequences, never stops to consider me."

This was definitely Vlad Masters. The man was monologuing.

"Sugar cookies, does he have any idea what these last six weeks have been? The uncertainty, the waiting, the not knowing—but Jack and Maddie? Oh, I imagine they just sat there in that miserable little lab of theirs, playing house, unable to do a thing to help him when it was their fault to begin with. They let this happen. And now he’s back, standing in the light like he’s won something, like he’s proven something, like he doesn’t owe an explanation to anyone? But this isn’t over, no, no, not by a long shot,"

It really was a 'cursed lineage impulse control thing' Gemma realized. It really was that simple.

She threw the rock—

"This changes everything! I have a second—”

Thwack

Gemma Masters ran for her life while Laughing her ass off at the look on the vampire ghost's face. 

 

Gemma Constantine smiled.

 

---

 

Batman was back in Gotham.

Staying in DC to undermine the GIW without first verifying Marlowe’s claims hadn't seemed prudent. He was in the Batcave staring at the schematics he’d requested from the man before leaving—glowing lines etched in red and blue against the low light of the cave—when Stephanie Brown, Batgirl, draped herself over the back of his chair.

Her arms slid around the chairs stile, and she rested her chin on his shoulder. The position was overly familiar but his posture didn’t change. He’d heard her approach, measured her footsteps against the background hum of the Batcave’s systems, and had more than enough time to intercept or deflect. If he had, she would have stopped.

His lack of objection was the invitation. She was finally tamping down her fear of him.

Batgirl held a contradiction. Unlike the other people he had trained she didn’t think she was better than Batman at anything.

She also believed he had the emotional depth of a teaspoon.

The fact that she didn’t see her own social intuition and emotional competence as a strategic asset was a waste of her skill—but Bruce had also been informed that commodifying friendship was 'bad,' so he tried to let it go.

"Whose giant death laser you looking at?"

The schematics were indeed of a 20-foot-tall instrument array. Ominous with a cartoonishly evil aesthetic, like something pulled from an old Gray Ghost serial.

"Mine, apparently."

"Apparently?"

"I do not recall commissioning it. And furthermore—"

"It kinda sucks."

"Yes."

She wrinkled her nose. "For one thing, it’s not a laser."

That was the other thing about Batgirl, Batman thought.

"No stimulated emission. See?" She reached around his shoulder, pointing at a cluster of notations. "This is just focused light. Archimedes' death ray. An amped up telescope."

She grew up around novelty death traps and convoluted quiz-based schemes. She intuitively understood how to disrupt and dismantle them. It was the skill she had first named herself for.

Spoiler. 

Her finger tapped the screen. "Look at the distances on the lens array… you might be better off calling it a solar oven. I could bake muffins!"

Ten seconds. That’s how long it took her to isolate the weakness in the design and highlight what had been bothering him for the last twenty minutes. Yet the girl with the ability to disrupt almost any situation still didn’t think she surpassed him at anything.

"I was told it would sterilize a pocket dimension," Batman elaborated. "What if the power source was increased?"

Stephanie hummed. "If you used Kryptonian eye beams or something?"

She shifted, her hand reaching up to absently fidget with the ear of his cowl.

That movement was too familiar. He made himself tolerate it long enough for her to finish the explanation.

"It’s too fragile," she explained. "The frame’s made out of a single piece of poured aluminum. The lack of seams looks fancy, but the low melting point would turn it to slag before you got any meaningful boost from upping the input. You've either been sold complete trash…"

Suspicion laced her voice,

"…or it’s not using physics at all."

Batman’s gaze sharpened. "Hm."

"Sorry." She pushed off the chair suddenly, stepping back into the shadows of the cave. "Not useful, I know."

"Your impression is accurate." His voice was low, even. "I appreciate the confirmation of my own analysis."

He could practically hear her grin in the dark behind him as she headed for the showers.

They really were each better than him in their own way. That was the point. He was no longer the 'best in the world' at many things because his children had surpassed him. 

Best of all, they continued to exceed him at every turn.

Deep in a cave under Wayne Manor where no one but his family could possibly see him, he let himself feel a small amount of fatherly pride.

 

The Batman smiled

 

Notes:

Thomas Constantine's funeral was in Hellblazer #31 'The Mourning of the Magician'. He was a shitty person and a worse ghost. This is the first time readers see young Gemma as magically gifted instead of just magically victimized. She sees ghosts. It's bad.

Cheryl Masters nee Constantine was John's older sister. Being his sister was rough but she tried. She really tried.

There is no cannon content to explain Gemma's life after the end of the Vertigo Hellblazer run. Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think a single writer has acknowledged her or her parents existence since 2013. Her entire life for the last 12 years is something I am creating whole cloth. That necklace is a checkovs gun that will be explained further when it go's off. It's the only major magical working that Gemma has created during the last 10 years. She risked everything to make it and then she QUIT.

I believe based on Hellblazer #240 that the 'Laughing Magician' is just cosmic permission to be a little shit. Beings who have power deserve to be heckled by the masses. It keeps things balanced.

As much as I'm putting down Vlad, he has given the most precise information about the amount of time Danny has been missing. His obsession won't let him do otherwise.

No direct source for Batcave stuff unless you count the deep cut of 'Batman: War Games' for Stephanie. I stopped reading DC comics as a little kid because New 52 erased most of the teen heros I looked up to. Spoiler came back but it's taken decades to win back my trust and I still struggle with the main continuity.

Chapter 21: Great Gatsby

Summary:

In which Mr. Lancer has a few things to say on the subject of his students

Team Phantom might have been at the edge of the square nearest the street, but it was still startling when a battered van jumped the curb and drove full speed toward them, only to skid sideways and slam the side door open.  

"Ms. Fenton! I suggest you gather your friends and leave before this gets ugly."  The driver, Mr. Lancer, Casper Highschool vice principal, yelled. 

Jazz looked up at her brother, fumbling over his response to the press, with concern. She fought the urge to bolt to his side and drag him away herself. This was too much, too soon—he wasn’t ready for this kind of pressure. 

"Don't worry about Danny," Sam muttered "He's going to remember he can turn invisible any minute." She shot a quick glance at the others.

"Clockwork Orange! We can discuss it on the road, but we need to get you out of this crowd before someone connects the ghost boy to the rest of your little group."  

‘Draper’ moved first, scraping the unconscious wizard off the ground and lifting with his knees, his jaw set with grim determination. The rest of the kids rushed to help, exchanging nervous glances as they struggled to support the wizard’s limp form. Val took a moment to collect the still dazed ghost vulture in a thermos as they piled in. 

Danny watched his friends leaving and tried to convince himself he had a handle on this.

Lance Thunder had been the face of local news in Amity Park for as long as Danny could remember, and now the bright blonde man was in his face with a mic, fishing for a soundbite. Danny had spent the better part of the last two months coordinating a prison break and inspiring ghosts who had, up until recently, been trying to kill him. 

This was somehow worse.  

His Adam’s apple dipped as he gulped before answering. What was important? What did people need to know? He opened his mouth, and the words just seemed to spill out of him, raw and desperate, like he’d been holding it back for too long.

"Ghosts are people." His voice cracked, and he forced himself to stand taller, to let the words carry to the crowd. "I don't know what I need to say to convince you—ghosts are people. I— I've been with the GIW. The GIW are hurting people. You are hurting people. If this keeps going, you are going to start a war."

He swallowed hard, his eyes blazing with a mixture of fear and determination. "I love Amity. I grew up here. I don’t want anything bad to happen. But—everyone dies. Everyone. And if you keep trying to make it a crime to exist… If you arm children, it will start a war." He gestured down at the Masters Blasters, his hands shaking. "If you build an army, it will start a war. You can’t just force this town into being a battlefield because you’re afraid. You don’t know what you’re dealing with. You don’t know what you’re calling down on yourselves."

He drew in a shaky breath, his shoulders trembling. "Most ghosts just want whatever they had, or almost had, or desperately wanted. You don’t know. You don’t appreciate how amazing life is. How warm the sun is. How soft the rain is. Moonlight on the Mississippi…" His voice trailed off wistfully. He could still feel the cool breeze on his face. A breeze he'd never felt. "You can’t take that for granted. You can’t just call ghosts monsters because you’re scared of what you don’t understand."

He forced himself to meet the eyes of the crowd. "If you call us monsters, we will become monsters. I don’t want that. I don’t want to be that. I don’t want to frighten anyone, but I can’t—I can’t protect you from that. I’m sorry, but I’m just not enough. I’m not strong enough to stop it if you keep pushing."

His eyes scanned the masses, searching for someone—anyone—who might understand, who might hear him. "You need to stop. To…" He struggled for the words, his mind racing. "De-escalate. This city is on the border of—of everything. You need to become a border town. You need diplomats, not exterminators. You can’t start a conversation with a gun or, or a laser, or— whatever the hell that CD-ROM thing was!"

His shoulders sagged, and his voice dropped, thick with exhaustion and the raw honesty of someone who’d carried too much for too long. "Please. I’m just—I'm just so, so tired."

The words hung in the air, heavy with vulnerability. It wasn’t just about fear or anger anymore. It was about grief and frustration and love—love for his town, love for the life he used to know, and love for the people who didn’t even realize how much they’d hurt him. He didn’t know if they’d listen, didn’t know if anything would change. But for the first time, he couldn’t hold it back anymore.

Mr. Lancer had pulled away, the van lurching onto the street as Danny vanished from the impromptu speech, slipping into invisibility and following them. He dipped dangerously, the weight of his message pressing him down like gravity, but he forced himself to focus, keeping pace as the van sped off.

---

 

Inside the van, the balding driver adjusted the rearview mirror, angling it just enough to keep an eye on the backseat rather than the road.

His hands were rigid on the steering wheel, “Where to?” he asked, his tone strained but impressively calm, given the circumstances.

“This man needs a hospital,” Tim called from the middle bench, where he and Valerie were struggling to keep John’s head from lolling to the side. The older man’s breathing was shallow, but steady.

“Not the hospital,” Tucker insisted too quickly from his seat in the far back, squeezed next to Sam.

Tim gave an irritated glare “He’s stable, but he’s got Battle’s sign—bruising under his ears. We’re looking at a cracked skull.”

Lancer shot him a sharp glance, eyebrows furrowing in confusion. “Excuse me?”

Tim glanced down at John, his mouth set in a grim line. “He’s bleeding from a basal skull fracture. He needs real medical care—ideally someone who can handle brain trauma.” His voice was tight but controlled.

Jazz shot a nervous glance at Mr. Lancer from the front passenger seat. “No hospitals,” she said firmly, pushing down the wave of nausea that threatened to rise.

“But—”

“He threw a ball of ecto,” Valerie interrupted, her voice low and fierce. “It was a tiny one, but still. Not hospital safe.”

“No hospitals,” Jazz repeated, more resolute this time. Her voice didn’t shake, even though her heart was pounding.

“—̶̭̮̿̑͛No bloody hospitals—̵͂̒͒I am a ghost. Fear  ̶m̷e̵!̴”̷”

A mechanical feminine voice cut through the tension, garbled and staticky, startling everyone.

Jazz whipped around, eyes darting across the van. “Is that a Fenton Ghost Gabber in your glove box?” she demanded, incredulous.

Lancer looked a little sheepish, his cheeks flushing faintly. “I bought it at a garage sale,” he muttered.

The device crackled again, and the artificial voice rasped through a mess of static. “I—̷̛̭̕crackle—̵̮̾̈́body. I am a ghost. Fear me!”

“Hey, John,” Tucker said, leaning over the seat to get a better look at the older man. “You dying?”

The device hissed and popped before giving a more coherent response. “Hard to tell from—̴͎̤̃͠scrtk—̸̣̹̀Ů̴̦͐͝N̵͇̿̊͆̄C̷͔̹͜͝Ě̵͍R̸̹̹̫̪̈T̶̻̥͛A̴̢͎͋̔̀͠I̸̙̅N̷͕̳̼̽̃̈T̸̨̥͋̊Y̷̢̱͌͋̒̔ ̵͔̣̖̣̾Ī̵̡̛̱̘S̷̥̒̆ ̴̢̼̣̥̊͐T̷͈̰̪̲̊͐͌̋Ḧ̷͎̯̟́̋̏Ẽ̸̛̬̫̇̑ ̴̧̼̀͊R̶̩̳̲̥̎̐͘Ơ̸̖̇̚̚O̵͇̞͒̂͜T̷̡͎̼̘͂ ̸͎͝O̷͉͊̕F̸̮̝͎͎̒̒ ̶̣͔̯̓̕̕̚F̶̺̯̹͂R̶̻̹͂̒̔E̷̪̲̾̆̊E̴̬̖̣͉̓ ̴̖̃͊͗͠Ẁ̷̡̘̕I̸̬͕̙̎ͅL̷̰̜̠͆̈L̸̛̖̣̠̏̅ —̶̭̮̿̑͛three hours, —̵̡̮̘͐́̓̊ if I’m not—̷̳̌̈́̽̀̑̕call Gem—̵͂̒͒she’s—̵̮̾̈́vivimancy. I am a ghost. ̵F̴e̶a̷r̸ ̶m̷e̵!̴”̷

“What was that scratchy part in the middle?” Sam demanded, eyes narrowing. “and how do we call Gemma?”

"Vivi- means alive right?" Valerie asked.

“John? John!” Tim’s voice was sharp, but the body on his lap remained completely unresponsive.

"Untranslated ghost speak was a known bug in early Ghost Gabber prototypes." Jazz explained. "I think we lost contact but that's not necessarily a bad thing for someone who's supposed to be alive."

Lancer cleared his throat, trying to suppress the unnerved look creeping into his expression. “I’m sorry, you heard the man, you’ve been outvoted. No hospitals. My question stands. Where to?”

“Our apartment in Easton,” Jazz answered without hesitation.

“Very well…” Lancer navigated through the winding streets, jaw clenched.

“You seem remarkably calm for someone who just used a ghost translator to talk to an unconscious stranger in your car” Tim remarked, though he couldn’t quite hide the wary edge in his tone.

Lancer gave him a pointed look in the rearview mirror, one brow arched. “You aren’t from Amity Park, are you?”

Silence fell over the group, thick and uneasy. Tucker shifted in his seat, casting more worried glances at the pale figure sprawled across Valerie and Tim’s laps. Jazz bit her lip, trying to think of something to say, but her thoughts were a whirlwind. Finally, she gathered her courage and asked,

“Why are you doing this, Mr. Lancer?”

The question hung in the air, fragile and raw. Lancer didn’t answer immediately, his focus still fixed on the road. When he did speak, his voice was measured and deliberate.

“Do you know what a mandatory reporter is, Ms. Fenton? Have you reached that part of your psychiatric studies?”

Tim straightened, cutting in before Jazz could respond.

“Mandatory reporters are civil servants required by law to report suspicious activity that might indicate child abuse. Each state is different, but it almost always applies to both teachers and law enforcement. If a teacher suspects a child could be in danger and doesn’t report it, they can be fined and lose their teaching credentials. Even if it turns out not to be abuse, failure to act on suspicious activity alone can get them fired.”

“Exactly so, Mr.—?”

“Draper,” Tim supplied smoothly.

“Exactly so, Mr. Draper.” Lancer’s tone softened, but the tension in his shoulders remained. “You and your unconscious friend are the only people in this car for whom I have not filed such a report."

His irritation was clear "Not once in the last three years of trying to ensure the safety of my students have I received a response from the state education board. The police under the Masters administration have been equally unresponsive.”

He gripped the wheel tighter, his voice dropping to a low, bitter murmur. "I went to the district records office in Chicago last August. They hadn’t been receiving my reports at all. Nothing from anyone in Amity Park had reached the state administrator in the last five years. Someone has gone through a whole lot of trouble to make sure children don’t get help."

"Great Gatsby, it grates my gears!" He exclaimed "I don’t know what to do. Mr. Fenton didn’t show up at school on September 28th, and I—I don’t know how to help anymore. I hope—”

His voice cracked, and he forced himself to swallow down the emotions bubbling up. “I really hope I’m right. You don’t have to tell me a thing, I won't even going to get out of this car when I drop you off if you don't want me to, but I hope he’s—I hope he’s meeting you at your apartment,”

He gave a small, whispered confession as if speaking it aloud made it real: “after he finishes with those reporters.”

Sam leaned forward, glancing over her shoulder. “He’s actually asleep back here, Mr. Lancer,” she called out. “Got in with us when we left. You must have missed him.”  

Mr. Lancer frowned, further adjusting his rearview mirror to get a better look.

Sure enough, there was a mop of black hair attached to a whip-thin boy, next to Sam and Tucker, sprawled against the rear window in the previously empty space in the very back row. Danny’s head was tilted at an awkward angle, his cheek pressed flat against the glass, and a thin trail of drool smudged the window.  

“How very unobservant of me,” Lancer deadpanned while studying the boy who most certainly had not been in the car when they left. He took a deep breath, struggling to compose himself before settling back into his familiar teacher’s cadence. “Could one of you please check to see if Mr. Fenton remembered his seatbelt when he arrived?”  

Tucker reached over to give the belt a tug, confirming it was snug across Danny’s lap. “He’s good,” he reported, giving a small thumbs-up.  

Lancer hummed in acknowledgment, eyes on the road ahead. Eventually, he cleared his throat. “Ms. Manson. Mr. Foley. Ms. Gray. You have a short essay due before Thanksgiving break. If you will not be joining me on Monday morning, I suggest you begin thinking about the creative writing assignment now. A five-paragraph paper on why you are unavailable should suffice as an exercise in imaginative thinking."

He gave them a pointed look through the mirror. “I’m mostly required to check grammar and sentence structure, not content. Dot your i’s and cross your t’s—and come back in one piece, please.”  

“Sure thing, Mr. Lancer,” Valarie said, giving him a nod of respect that bordered on gratitude. “Thanks for the ride.”  

Sam and Tucker exchanged a look but stayed quiet, and the rest of the drive passed without another word.

Notes:

I have always loved Mr Lancer fics. It's almost always an identity reveal story told from the POV of a concerned adult.

Battle's sign is a real symptom of basal skull fracture and can take a day or more to appear. Sharp eyed readers will notice that John has been sporting bruises under his ears since way back when Danny first saw him playing guitar.

In 'Staring at the Wall' Gemma has the ability to talk to and move living souls with vivimancy. It's like necromancy but without the *dead* part.

Doctors almost always want a closer look at Constantine's blood but he can usually retrieve it before things get dicey. 'Hellblazer: City of Demons' (the book not the movie) is about what happened when his plasma was added to blood transfusions for an entire hospital ward in 2010. *It was bad.* This story also established Johns tendency to follow his body as a spirit for as long as he can manage it if he loses consciousness. Tune in next week for his walkabout on the astral plane.

Zalgo Ghost Speak in this chapter reads: 'Uncertainty is the root of free will.' I subscribe to the fanon that ghost speak directly conveys deeper emotions and contexts than spoken language. Constantine doesn't know he said this; he was just trying to answer the question 'are you dying' and his answer got twisted into something more metaphysical then a simple 'I don't know'.

Chapter 22: Walkabout

Summary:

In which Mercury of the travelers has a few more things to say on the subject of John Constantine

John Constantine felt his spirit leave the van as he was suddenly gripped by the stubborn urge to become one with the universe.

That didn’t necessarily mean he was dying—though it wasn’t a good sign. He took it in stride. Wouldn’t be the first time. Despite a preference for knowing where his body was, being untethered seemed like a good opportunity to poke his nose around.

The problem with "becoming one with the universe" was that the universe was never just one thing. You could poll a hundred people and get a thousand answers, and they’d all be true.

It hardly took a thought and then—

Constantine was drifting.

Today the universe was a dragon.

The dragon.

The dragon that came from the egg that came from Zed.

The egg that came from the moment that came from him.

The dragon that was consuming her brother, Jallakuntilliokan.

The dragon that was consuming him too now—the cycle that never ended.

It rose up like a pulsing mountain, tangled around its twin. The Divine Masculine and the Divine Feminine twisting together and devouring each other like a flashback to his thirties.

Unwelcoming. Unknowable. Dismissive. Far too familiar.

There were worlds in the eyes of the dragon. He was always the same. It was people around him who changed. The world where he was the contingency plan to stop Darkseid. The world where he joined the Legion of Tomorrow and actually had something like a life with Zed… The world where there was no Newcastle crew, just him and Chas—Chas in the band instead of a roadie. Chas in a New York yellow cab. Chas a child apprenticed under him in L.A. Chas an old man in a hospital bed in London.

It only felt like a moment. The moment felt like eternity.

Of course, he thought, as he pulled himself out of the scrum. The universe was just one more of his kids who didn’t want anything to do with its deadbeat dad.

He preferred his universal oneness when it came with a smoke filled bar, a beer, and a constant stream of writers asking personal questions about his life. He supposed that would have to wait for a better trip around the bend.

"Whoa. I’ve never seen it look like that before."

John glanced over his shoulder and saw a teenage Mercury, her soul-self younger than he’d seen her in years. That was self perception warping things and making her look like a kid again. His own soul-self was flickering in concerning ways and looking closer to sixty. Shame. He tried to stay sharp and think younger than that most days, but it seemed like maybe he was finally getting tired.

They hung there, not quite floating, not quite falling, just suspended in the endless space between stars and thought.

He looked back at the dragons. "Hey, Merc. Meet your sister— the draconic aspect of pure femininity. She's the one on the left."

"Um... I’m pretty sure that’s not how that ritual worked," she said, squinting at the shifting, writhing forms. "I don’t think you or Mom or Zed or any of the other old hippies get to claim, you know... parental anything."

"No hard feelings?"

"Hm. About the world-saving orgy with my mom? Nah." She shrugged, unconcerned. "I don’t think you wanted to be there. I don’t think you would’ve been if they hadn’t needed a dick to make it go off. I don’t—I don’t think any of you had much of a choice. I’m not complaining. I’d be dead—well, everything would be dead—but I’d be extra... unmade?"

She looked at him with something like pity, but it passed quickly, hardening back to pragmatism. "It’s when you came crawling around a few years later—all horny and covered in psychic bloodstains—that's what I’m still pissed about. We both know that was one of the worst decisions she ever made."

"Yeah," he sighed. It hurt to admit, but they had already had this conversation. Just because something had seemed like the best choice available didn’t make it good or right. "You, ah, you look good, kid. You doing better?"

"Not really. My soul’s resilient—my body not so much. I’m actually drooling down my shirt and tripping balls on a cocktail that's mostly Clozapine and Thorazine. I’m relatively safe, made it to The Wren Library. I’m here to deliver an urgent message from the librarian of the secret wing in exchange for sanctuary and more of the good drugs."

"Oh? Does he know something about what’s going on down in the Bleed?"

"No, or rather I don’t think he cares? He's very focused. Says you have outstanding library books."

"Is that all? He sent you on a psychic walkabout to deliver a late fee notice? I’m a little busy to return my books today."

"You’re always a little busy. This is serious. I, uh, think he will eat you? If you don’t?"

"No," John corrected. "He will ‘try’ to eat me. And if he eats me, he doesn’t get his books back, does he? I left them back at the House."

He lit a cigarette from a purple and white box of Silk Cuts, taking a drag that tasted like memory more than smoke.

"You’re smoking on the astral plane?" she asked, incredulous. "Is the lung cancer part of your sense of self too, or is it just the cigarettes?"

"The trick to destructive habits is pointing yourself at something that needs to be destroyed."

He gestured at the writhing tangle of dragons. "What do you make of it?"

Mercury squinted, studying the shifting mass, and her lips pressed into a thin line. "I think you’re here for a reason."

"We all are. It's just usually crap."

"No, but I meant here, here. This specific place. I think... I think you’re thinking about family."

He shot her a skeptical look.

"You say this is my sister?" she elaborated "Look at it, John. Really look. I think you’d have to be phenomenally lonely to expect any acknowledgment or companionship from that. You’re better off trying to claim the moon or the stars."

He didn’t deny it.

Merc leaned against nothing in particular, her silhouette edged in violet light, the weight of her presence far more substantial than his, at odds with the intangible surroundings. Distant echoes of songs half-remembered hummed just beyond hearing.

“Hey John?”

“Hm.”

“Where are your ghosts?”

“In Amity Park.”

“Not those ghosts. Your ghosts. All those poor people with the rhyming nicknames. Gaz the Spaz, Ric the Vic, Ray the Gay, Gav the Chav? The people who haunt you."

"Oh god— Emma the dilemma, how have I never noticed that?" He gave a self deprecating chuckle.

"They aren’t always obvious, but here in this place... I know you. I’ve been in your head. You’re never alone. Where are they?”

"There was this girl. It’s a long story."

“It’s always a girl.”

“Hey now, I date guys too. Sometimes it’s a guy.”

“Sure, but that’s straightforward. When it’s a guy it's a one night stand, or you break up clean, or you die. When it’s a girl? Your epically messy, world-ending relationship drama usually starts with a girl and ends with a tortured, insane, and vengeful shell of a human being. So. Tell me about this one.”

“She died, but she did a bad job of it. Got too big and ate the others.”

He was being intentionally short because he didn’t like Merc’s description of his exes.

Tortured, insane, and vengeful was actually a perfect description for the ghost that had eaten the others. It also described most of the women in his life. The ones who got out should start a survivors support group. 

“Oh. Not a long story at all then. Anyone I knew?”

“No. Veronica left Mucous Membrane right before everything spiraled.”

His voice had that edge to it, the one that meant he’d rather be bleeding out than talking about this.

“When did she—?”

“Died in ’78. Came back hungry in ’15.”

Merc moved in closer, her boots somehow finding traction on the uncertain plane, and studied his face with something caught between pity and skepticism. “You’ve been alone since? Damn, I didn’t even notice.”

“You were busy with that jinn infestation.”

“Still. How do you cope?”

“Justice League, mostly.” He shrugged. “The threats are bigger and flashier and more frequent and I hardly ever need to think. I spent a few years just... getting pointed at big, scary, interdimensional or extraterrestrial Lovecraftian things that needed killing.”

Merc’s eyes narrowed, like she was looking for cracks in his armor. “You used to tell me that if you ever started thinking like a weapon, you were as good as dead.”

“Well. They needed a weapon.” He shrugged again. “Fought Old Gods and New Gods and some Medium Gods too. Killed the universes oldest reality-warping evil super wizard. Then we circled back a few years later to be thorough and mop up the youngest one after. It hasn’t been great, but it’s distracting. Keeps me moving."

"You spend a lot of time avoiding Brixton?"

He flickered a bit more deeply but continued talking about his ghosts, smoothly ignoring the question entirely. 

"Never picked up any new faces along the way despite a few dead acquaintances that definitely should have stuck around.”

“That makes sense." She took the hint and followed his lead. "You have to have just the right relationship to haunt a person. There’s hating you enough to haunt you and then there’s hating you enough to choose hell instead.”

“Thank his ineffable majesty for that. It's the reason I never had to spend any extra years with my father, you know. He was always going to choose hell. Checked in on him once. He's mostly coat hangers these days.”

“There it is again. Family. I don’t think you’ve ever mentioned your dad to me. Not even when you were banging my mom to distract from feeling guilty about murdering his murderer.”

He gaped at her. The cigarette fell from his mouth and vanished as it left his perception.

She rolled her eyes and pointed to herself. “Passively psychic child,” then pinched two fingers nearly together. “Very tiny shared living space.”

“Sorry.” He meant it too.

“You should be. You’re lucky I didn’t become one of the Midwich Cuckoos or something off of the Twilight Zone.” She sighed, the sound almost lost under the faint humming that filled the place. “I don’t think you’ve become this introspective all on your own. It’s like someone’s trying to get you to think about your pain, but you keep derailing it and thinking about family instead.”

“Family can be painful.”

“Family can be strong.”

“You’ve clearly never met mine. They’re never happy to see me.”

“I don’t count? I’m happy to see you.” She insisted.

“You’re happier when you’re not seeing me,” he shot back.

“Well, maybe if you would call without some sort of ulterior motive or the end of the world—”

“Oh, you’d never trust that. 'End of the world' is part of my charm.”

“Sure, John. Charm. Keep telling yourself that.”

“Hey, you called me this time.”

“Hm.” She studied his soul self, watching it continue to flicker in and out like a faulty neon sign. “What’s in your pocket?”

“My pocketsses? I've got The One True Ring and a dose of none-of-your-business.” He deflected.

“It’s here. On your person. In this place. It’s got to be important.” She insisted.

“It’s— okay, you might be on to something with the family angle. I’ve been thinking. You’d end me, right? If I needed ending?”

“Sure.” She said it sad, but she didn’t hesitate. “I’d be first in line.”

“Right.” He pulled up a glowing sigil from his pocket.

The paper it had been written on hadn’t carried over to the astral plane and instead it glowed gold and twisted above his hand. It was painted in his intent and she could see the entire pattern of the plan, not just the magic it represented.

“Wow. That might be the single worst use of an original Solomonic spell array I’ve ever seen.”

“You would be the expert. What do you think?”

“I don’t think it’s going to do what you want it to do. You might get very lucky and it'll do what you need it to do instead..."

She trailed off before asking "... is it for me?”

“No. Well— maybe? I’m dropping it off in the Batcave first chance I get.”

“You are an absolute idiot.”

“So your professional opinion is—?”

She studied the cluster of notation, “I'm starting Lithium when I get back. That can stick around for months. Looks like you already penciled me in, so yeah. I'll be there, but I won't be very useful. Don't rush into this okay?  But really, Batman? When did you become a team player?”

“Dunno, might've been when you called and the team started asking the right questions.”

He thought he heard music. The soft hum in the background resolving into a recognizable tune. Somewhere, someone was playing his song.

Calling him back.

Must be time.

“Tell the librarian I promise to return my books first chance I get.”

“Would this be a lie?”

He rolled his eyes, “Just tell ’em.”

He started to fade from view.

“John? Uncle John?”

"YOU STILL NEED THERAPY JOHN!" She yelled after him but he was already gone.

Notes:

Lot's of references in this one. It's hard not to when it's Mercury.

references

The Divine Masculine and the Divine Feminine dragons are from the end of 'Fear Machine.' This was a very long arc that introduced Mercury and her traveling off-grid family. The masculine dragon Jallakuntilliokan was summoned to end the world but Zed led a series of pagan rights to create an equal and opposite feminine force. Like many early Hellblazer stories the consent was dubious. Zed laid an egg. It became a fundamental aspect of reality. They may have all been tripping balls at the time.

The visions in the dragons eyes are (mostly) Hellblazer interpretations in other media. Cartoons, movies, and live action television.

Chas Chandler is John Constantines closet friend. He has been conspicuously absent from the story so far.

The 'writers pub' universal oneness/ liminal space/preferred afterlife was foreshadowed in issue #23, depicted in issue #120, and has a call back as the finale panel of issue #300. It's a fourth wall break set in the real world where Constantine is telling stories about his life to the other patrons at a bar. Many of those patrons work for DC and go on to write and draw the Hellblazer books based on the outlandish tales from this guy they hang out with after work.

After killing the serial killer known as the Family Man, John went looking for some needy sex to make himself feel better and really messed up Mercs head.

The 'Family Man' story also had the first instance of the line "if you start thinking like a gun you are already dead." This line is reused in 'City of Demons' (the book not the movie) except it's rephrased to be about knives. It's very hard to align this philosophy with some of the more poorly written parts of Justice League Dark but I tried. Doing the flashy cosmic hero thing was a trauma response.

The oldest 'evil super wizard' would be the Upside-down Man. The youngest one is Tim Hunter. Tim is Harry Potter. It's a problem for everyone.

Hellblazer 'Going Down' established the Wren library in Cambridge as having a secret wing and a creepy Librarian who may be as old as the building. The librarian loaned the original lead singer of Mucus Membrane a book on soul magic. She became unwritten from reality and later reemerges as a Lovecraftian horror with an obsession and an appetite.

The jinn infestation was the first story arc of Hellblazer Rebirth. Merc is keeping King Solomons original jinn adviser in a cage in her mind but she hasn't mentioned it to John.

Silk Cuts were queer coded back in the 80s. They *are* part of Johns 'sense of self' not just a random vice.

Thomas Constantine forced his wife to get a back alley abortion in the '50s resulting in her death. In 'How to Play with Fire' Hellblazer #132 he is impaled on hundreds of thin metal coat hangers as punishment for this specific sin.

The paper in Johns pocket was what he was thinking about in the moments after Danny received the ecto-dejecto. He will explain more of his plan when I finally move the plot along far enough for him to get to the Batcave. Being mysterious is like a drug for both me and my MC.

Lithium salts treat psychosis by replacing sodium salt in the body and building up in the neural pathways of the brain. Mercury really doesn't want to be psychic this week and is willing to risk months of incapacitation to stop feeling everything all at once.

Chapter 23: No big deal

Summary:

In which Tim Drake has a few things to say on the subject of John Constantine

The first thing Danny did when he got to the privacy of his sister’s apartment was change back.

He barely had the strength to do it, but he’d learned to push through worse. His human half looked a thousand times better than the wreck he'd been, but it was still bad. Consuming a gallon of grease in cheeseburger form had let him put on enough weight to become waifish-supermodel thin instead of war-crimes thin, but every inch of him still ached.

He'd rather be dead. Luckily, he had that option.  

Tim was in the next room laying John out on the unused bed that had been Danny's for two whole weeks last September. He’d barely moved in before he’d been caught, but the few personal touches he’d managed to add—like the glowing stars on the ceiling and a paper-mache rocket on the nightstand—were exactly as he’d left them. 

When the silver light flowed over Danny, it made him feel lighter and more alert. He looked around at his closest friends—Jazz leaning against the doorframe, Tucker flipping his PDA nervously between his fingers, Valerie standing with her arms crossed, the tension in her shoulders betraying her forced calm. Sam, of course, was right next to him, her hand on his arm like she needed to keep him tethered to the moment.  

He opened his mouth, hesitated, then looked right at Valerie. “Sorry, guys, I’ve been out of the loop for a while. When did Valerie find out?”  

The tension in the room shifted, a flicker of something uneasy passing between them. Valerie didn’t flinch, didn’t look away, just raised an eyebrow like she’d been preparing for this moment for a while. “After you got taken. Didn’t take long to put two and two together.”  

“Guess it was bound to happen,” Danny muttered. He glanced at Valerie again, unsure what to say. “You’re... taking it pretty well.”  

Valerie gave a dry, almost bitter smile. “Would’ve been easier if it wasn’t because you got yourself kidnapped by the government, but... yeah. I've had some time to adjust.”  

Danny just nodded, too tired to really unpack it. He squeezed Sam’s hand a little tighter, hoping the gesture would communicate what he didn’t have the energy to say.

---

Agent Snow wore a white suit on her eight-hour plane trip to America. She was sipping cheap gin from a plastic cup and reading the same paragraph in her briefing packet for the fifth time without actually processing it.  

Senator Jones had gone drinking with Bruce Wayne Saturday afternoon—

—then drinking with pork lobbyists on Saturday evening—

—then drinking with members of the Illinois Grange Halls well into Saturday night—

By the time he'd washed up at the hotel bar of the British embassy it was technically the early hours of Sunday morning. He'd been well and truly sloshed—barely able to navigate his own feet and mumbling through whatever social niceties he thought appropriate.

He had drunkenly mentioned the GIW to the consulate’s daughter across the bar. 

He never knew that over Sunday morning brunch, the girl told her father, who told the Prime Minister, who told the Division Chief, who assigned it to MI6 who forwarded it to the occult branch of MI5.  

Now it was The Woman in Whites problem.

Georgina Snow was a Cambridge-trained British consulting occultist in her sixties. Her dark hair had a streak of iron-gray creeping through it. Her skin was a smooth light brown that had weathered the years well, but what wrinkles she had were not from laughing. She followed the rules, navigated the bureaucracy like it was an extension of herself, and always wore white on duty—originally for fashion, mostly for personal branding.

Her name was Snow.

She'd wanted to be remembered when she was first starting out. Particularly by the racists who thought Indian decent was a prerequisite for mysticism. She'd hadn't intended to start a trend but over the years junior members of her unit had followed her lead and differentiated themselves from the rest of MI5 by choosing white.

She was irrationally irritated that the Americans were doing it too now. 

She was tidy, reliable, and good at her job in all of the ways that made her the right person the to call if you couldn't stand John Constantine.  She hadn’t spoken to the man in the last decade, and that suited her just fine.

She didn’t need that particular headache in her life. Dealing with hellspawn, politicians and the faerie dignitaries of Abaton was already bad enough.

Unfortunately, fate had other ideas.

One of those dignitaries had met Agent Snow at the terminal, seated herself in the same row on the plane and proceeded to talk excitedly and at length about Constantine.

Being from faerie, Georgina supposed Ivy-Mae Palace could technically be any age. She looked like a purple haired college student. Thanks to a particularly competitive scholarship application she was one.

She attended Trinity College.

She studied Library Science. 

She studied Library Science at the Wren Library. 

According to Palace, Constantine was nearing 10 years of late fees and that's when the fines from the supernatural archivists started to get interesting.

Head Librarian Ahmes was the same old man Agent Snow had met over forty years ago, back in her twenties. He hadn’t retired. He hadn’t aged at all. 

Preceptive precognitive bastard. 

If he had sent a student to trail her to the GIW, then it was likely she’d cross paths with Constantine on this trip.

What a horrible thought.  

As far as Georgina was concerned, the only reasonable approach to encountering John Constantine was to take the easy way out and kill him on sight. It’d save everyone a lot of trouble. She wasn’t sure if she could, but that wouldn’t stop her from giving it a solid, calculated try, even if it wasn't her mission.

The librarians probably knew exactly how likely she was to succeed too.

The fairy princess might be here to deliver the final late notice.

The assassination attempt by the MI5 occultist was the almost certainly intended to be the fine.

 

---

 

The hand Constantine was gripping was cold and dead.

Ugh.

This dream again. He hated this dream.

A halo of platinum blonde hair floated just out of reach, like it was suspended in water.

"Astra?"

He tightened his grip, panic flaring to life in his chest. He blinked harder, trying to see her face, trying to make sense of the blurry shapes around him. Everything was muted, washed out in gray light.

"Astra." He called to her, voice rough and desperate. "Sorry, luv, I’m almost—"

He pulled harder, and the memory shifted around him, dragging him back to that night. Astra’s hand was cold but not yet stiff—just like it had been when the police had shown up all those years ago.

They’d found him kneeling on the pavement, his hand locked around what was left of her arm after the rest of her had been torn away at the shoulder. The world had faded to white noise, but he could still hear the shouting, still feel the rough hands grabbing at him.

They hadn’t been able to pry his fingers off. They’d had to break his grip, one finger at a time. He hadn’t even blinked. He just kept staring at the place where she’d been, as if she might come back if he just didn’t let go.

They’d assumed he’d killed her. They assumed he’d done worse. The police, the judge, the orderlies, the doctors— even his own sister.

Pedo.

Pervert. 

He never corrected any of them.

He’d deserved it—

Gone looking for it—

Ask and you shall receive.

He’d received beatings and Combined Electrochemical Therapy, in a vicious and nearly continuous cycle of that had kept his skull throbbing with aftershocks for years.

He’d deserved that too. 

Because he’d been so close.

She’d reached for him, and he’d told her it would be okay. He’d tried to pull her out—tried with every scrap of strength in his scrawny body. And then she was gone. Just— gone.

He’d spent the rest of that night gripping her cold, dead hand like a lifeline.

His or hers, it was hard to tell

The sound of music brought him back to himself. He blinked, the gray light dissolving. His hand still hurt, his knuckles white and bloodless, his fingers clenched in a death grip. 

He looked up, and Danny’s confused face swam into focus, his brow furrowed and his mouth turned down in worry. "Who's Astra?"

“Oh,” John muttered, reality seeping in around the edges of the nightmare. He didn’t let go.

“John? Dude!” Danny’s voice was a mix of annoyance and concern. He grimaced and phased his hand out of the grip.

He let his empty hand fall to his side, shaking like a leaf, and couldn’t quite meet Danny’s eyes. The ghost boy hovered close, hesitant, like he wasn’t sure whether to touch his shoulder or just back off entirely.

“You alright?” Danny asked

John swallowed and forced a smirk. “Yeah. Just... ghosts on the mind. Don’t worry yourself about it.”

Danny didn’t buy it, but he didn’t push, either. Just settled in a little closer, like his presence alone might chase away whatever nightmare had its claws in John’s skull. John let him. For once, he didn’t bother to say piss off.

John frowned and tried to sit up, but Danny put a gentle pressure on his chest and pushed him back down.

“Whoa now. Take it easy. We’re at my sister’s place." Danny said, his voice low and calm.

John squinted up at him, the ceiling a blur of glow-in-the-dark stars and cracked paint. “What happened?”

Tim spoke up from near the door, deadpan and unimpressed. “You got drunk and started a fight with the mayor.”

John blinked. The room swam, and he half-registered the gaggle of ghost-hunting teens crammed into the tight space. 

“Eh.” John flopped back on the pillow, staring at the plastic constellations plastered on the ceiling. “You know how it is—some days you get drunk and fight politicians, or get drunk and fight your friends, or get drunk and fight the devil, or get drunk and fight the Justice League, or get drunk and fight yourself—”

“Wait.” Tim’s tone was sharply curious now. “When did you fight the Justice League?”

“Oh good, you lot don’t remember that one.”

Tucker looked up from his phone, skeptical. “Who won?”

John gave him a lazy, crooked grin from his spot on the bed. “Would you believe me if I said it was me?”

“No,” Sam and Valarie said in unison.

John snorted. “Call it a draw, then.”

A low tune drifted across the room, and John listened, something tugging at the back of his mind. He thought he’d heard it before—not the song itself but the feeling of it. It wasn’t his song, but it was close. Close enough that he'd heard it seeping through from the other side.

“What are we listening to?” he asked.

Danny perked up, stretching out his legs. “Title track from the second Dumpty Humpty album: Great Fall.”

John hummed, letting the music wash over him. It had that familiar, raw sort of energy— “Hunh. It’s good. Got that ‘messing around with power beyond your control’ feel without going full ‘challenged the devil in a fiddle contest’ twang."

"Any of them ever been to Hell?”

Tucker glanced at his phone again, frowning. “I don’t think so? It’s not mentioned on their Bandcamp page.”

John scoffed. “Wouldn’t be.”

He let his eyes slip closed, the music settling into his bones. The more he listened, the more sure he was.

It was a damned good band. He could almost hear Venus of the Hard Sell in the spaces between the chords, that same reckless vibe. His kind of music.

After a few minutes, Danny spoke up, his voice quiet and a little uncertain. “You... sure you’re okay?”

John grunted, not bothering to open his eyes. “Lived through worse. Just a bit... caught out, yeah? Don’t fuss.”

The muffled voice of Jazz Fenton called from the next room, "Sandwiches are ready"

Danny and his friends perked up but the ghost boy hesitated.

"Go on. I want a word alone with Mr– ah shite"

"Draper" Tims eye twitched.

"Yeah. What he said." 

Danny, Tucker, Valerie and Sam exchanged glances, but they didn’t argue and scampered to the tiny kitchen.

Tim had the grace to wait until the latch clicked before speaking but it was mostly for show. He didn’t assume the thin wooden door was soundproof. He also didn't assume that he knew the full range of metahuman abilities among the occupants of the apartment.

Constantine was already sitting up, ignoring the way his body protested the movement.

“Don’t do that. You have a skull fracture."

“I know. Did a diagnostic first thing. It’s just a crack in my head. Nothing to do for it.”

“You should be in a hospital.”

“Like hell I should.” John scoffed, rubbing a hand over his face. “Doctors are always trying to steal my blood like I’m demonic Henrietta Lacks.”

Tim squinted. "Was I supposed to know that?”

“Don’t I have a medical file somewhere?”

“You listed yourself as baseline human.”

“Because I am! Mostly. Or I was— and why, for fucks sake, would you believe me? Isn’t knowing things your party trick?”

Tim crossed his arms and leaned against a bookshelf, unimpressed. “I have to take your word for this stuff. I would steal your medical files if you had them to steal. Even your doctors tend to go missing.”

John made an exaggerated show of shock, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “You don’t say? Did it occur to you that might be bloody cause and effect?”

Tim sighed. “An advanced medical directive would be helpful."

"You want something on file? Treat my body like it's got an exotic bloodborne pathogen. Don't let any of bits wander off. If I stay dead for three days reduce whatever's left to a fine powder and chuck it down the drain. Preferably a drain in South London because Effra owes me."

"Effra?"

"She's a river"

Tim took that in and returned to the more important issue. "You can't really think you can just shrug off a head injury?”

“I can, actually. I have." John spread his arms wide, smirking. "I can just keep telling myself I’m not in pain and, lo and behold, I get up again. Magical thinking. You should try it.”

“I have tried it. We all have.” Tim’s voice was flat. “It nearly cost us everything. Repeatedly. Now we close ranks. Cover for each other.”

“That’s all well and good. You’ve got people.”

“You’ve got people too,” Tim shot back. “Call for backup. Tap out before you’re tapped out. You’re not going to help anyone like this.”

John tilted his head and Tim winced at the dangerous motion. “Who said anything about helping people? I’m just helping me.”

Tim gave him a long, even stare. “You expect me to believe that? Really? I heard you were good at lying.”

Silence stretched between them.

John sighed, rubbing at his temple. “All right, you little tit. You want me to be a team player? Before you take another step forward, you’ve got a choice. You know more about the Fenton kids than their own parents. Cards on the table, or scamper back home.”

Tim’s jaw tightened. “That’s not your decision.”

“It absolutely is. Tit for tat, little bird. Honesty or bupkis.”

“You’re talking about the most closely guarded secret—”

“Bollocks.” Constantine let out a dry chuckle. “Two can keep a secret if one of ‘em is dead. Even then, I can usually get the dead one to talk ‘cause they've got nothin' to lose. The people who know your family secrets could fill an insane asylum. Pretty sure they already have.”

“Not all of the rogues know.” Tim hated how close that came to a whine.

“Of course not."  John ticked off his fingers "Just the smart ones, the lucky ones, the friends and family of the smart and lucky ones.” He smirked. “Oh, and don’t forget about that random trust-fund kid in his jimjams, taking creepy candid photos on rooftops in the middle of the night. Wonder whatever happened to him?”

Tim didn’t answer.

John exhaled slowly, leaning back. “Look, you can't stop me but for what it’s worth, I’d love to have you along. I don’t exactly have the best track record for making sure everyone comes home. It might be nice to have an adult in the room if I’m being followed by this many ducklings.”

Tim stared at the man who had to be at least four times his own age, then sighed.

 

“Fine."

 

Notes:

References

I was reviewing my timeline for cannon divergence in the early part of D-stabilized and realized that Valarie didn't know Danny's secret when he went missing. Now she does. Danny is rapidly reaching the point where he just doesn't care about secrecy anymore.

Georgina Snow was introduced in Constantine: Hellblazer 'Going Down'. She really does always dress in white which is a fun character affectation for a government employee in the Danny Phantom universe. She has been aged up because she met John while he was still in his punk band. In 'Going Down' that was the '00s. In my story it was the '70s. Stupid speedsters messing with continuity.

'Going Down' is amazing and I highly recommend it as a good starting point for new readers who want a taste of Hellblazer without committing to the entire Vertigo run AND ALSO for pretentious old readers who don't think post- Vertigo Hellblazer can be well written. I am absolutely spoiling the hell out of it though.

Student Librarian Palace is *mostly* my own creation. Her family however, is yet another group of people who's lives John thinks he's ruined.

The death of Astra Logue is like the baby in a spaceship or the pearls in the ally. You can't write Hellblazer without circling back to it. First appearance Hellblazer #8 but almost every writer includes some sort of flash back to this night.

John got drunk and fought the Devil aka First of the Fallen, in Hellblazer #42. It is the source of a decades long beef with deceit, backstabbing, and assassination attempts on both sides.

He got drunk and fought the Justice League in Rebirth #14 but the Mead of Poetry created a pocket reality and there wasn't a clear winner.

'Venus of the Hard Sell' was the one good song by Mucus Membrane. In recent interpretations of the band they were messing around with the occult as a group when they wrote it. It's what Ritchie demanded as payment back in chapter 3 and what John was desperately trying to remember how to play in chapter 9.

The green haired drummer in Dumpty Humpty has been to hell. John even knows the guy.

Constantine's main physical advantage in a fight is the ability to aggressively lie to himself about how much pain he is in. He has used this 'meditation technique' to keep going when he's suffering gaping chest wounds and to not flinch when sticking his arm in boiling oil. It does NOT mean he is ok.

Using meditation techniques to push through sleep depravation and physical pain is how Batman slipped up and got his back broken by Bane during 'Kightfall'. Tim knows its bad when other people do it. Tim is also a hypocrite who does it himself at the drop of a hat.

Tits are birds in the family Paridae. Other English speaking countries call them chickadees. I like the double entendre of calling Robin a little bird but also a boob.

Chapter 24: Managment sucks

Summary:

In which a vulture in a Fez has a few things to say on the subject of John Constantine.

Notes:

We now have an internal timeline!

This chapter opens up on the afternoon of Sunday, the 16th, November 2025. There was some weird 'house time' in there and not all of the scenes in Gotham line up perfectly but I promise to be more consistent moving forward.

“Wait—if he’s Red Robin, then does that make you like… the Justice League magic guy?”

The explanation had gone surprisingly smoothly, all things considered. Tim had even pulled on a domino mask halfway through to underscore the point. They were all clustered around a second hand coffee table, halfway through a late lunch made up of sandwiches tailored to everyone’s surprisingly specific dietary needs.

“I heard you sold your soul so many times you’ve lost track,” Tucker said, casually, like he was asking about someone’s stats in Doomed

“Spurious rumor,” John replied, not even looking up as he wiped mustard off his sleeve with a napkin. “I am currently the captain of my soul– I think? There’s probably going to be some kind of brawl over dispensation eventually, but for now I’m pretty sure I’m unowned. No active contracts. Just a series of grudges, vendettas, and bad decisions with lingering magical consequences.”

“Didn’t you help overthrow Hell?” Tim asked, raising a brow.

“I participated in two— three? Several—regime changes in Hell. It’s been a chaotic fifty years or so down there. Devils, demons, angels, and some real unique whatsits have all taken a swing at the throne since Lucifer abdicated. I had the first Triumvirate assassinated. The Archdukes turned on each other. Even Etrigan was king for a second before his replacement Triumvirate turned on him.”

Tim was listening closely, sandwich suspended in midair, filing mental notes for the Batcave’s 'Hellblazer' folder. Constantine was being more forthcoming with the Amity Park kids than he’d been in over a decade of Justice League debriefs. "Jason Blood has never mentioned being King of hell." 

"Did I stutter? I said Etrigan wore the crown. Pretty sure his little battle buddy slept through the whole thing. That's how fast the turnover has been lately. Some of these bozos only hold power for the length of a long nap." He gestured widely,

"Hells power structure is mostly organized chaos held together by bureaucracy. First of the Fallen clawed his way back to something approximating control, but even his claim on my soul isn’t legally binding anymore. There was divine intervention, some light coercion, and I managed to wrangle a technicality. The paperwork ended up in my favor.”

“There’s bureaucracy in Hell?” Danny blinked.

“Of course there is. It's Hell. What d’you think all those blood-and-fire contracts were for? Fine print, mate. Binding oaths. Legalese so convoluted it bends reality. That sweet little clause about the 'thrice defeated' being forced to renegotiate.” 

He smiled a little at the thought. "I've heard the rumours say I sold my soul hundreds or even thousands of times. I don't go correcting them but even when I was playing the market I never split myself more than three ways. I mostly used the simplest loophole of them all."

"Which is?" Jazz Fenton was barley containing her interest in the existence of supernatural paperwork.

"Everyone only thinks they are immortal until proven otherwise. I killed most of the bastards before before they could collect."

“And now?” Sam asked, with the ghost of a grin on her face.

“Now it’s mostly just a matter of who’s fastest to call dibs if I go down. Think less ‘eternal damnation’ and more ‘queue of pissed-off monsters waiting to cash in IOUs.’ First of the Fallen will have to get in line with half the infernal court and… well. Quite a few of my exes. Which is its own level of Hell, come to think of it.”

"You've said that before. 'First of the Fallen.' Is that Lucifer?" Valerie asked.

"No. Completely different people. It gets confusing because "The Devil" is basically a stage name. True Names have power so if some two-bit sorcerer with a trick performs a summons without a precise name attached to it, nine times out of ten whatever gets summoned is going to go by something generic like "The Devil" or "Satan" or something.

I did a favor for Lucifer once before he abdicated and we met in passing a couple of times afterwards... He's an angel. Sometimes he leans into the cliché tail and horns off the tequila bottle, but most of the time? If he's walking around looking human, he looks exactly like any other angel. Blonde hair and blue eyes and a jawline that's enough to give Goebbels an erection."

There were a few wide eyes at the colorful phrasing but John didn't seem to notice.

"When Lucifer Morningstar led the rebellion and fell with his host, he landed in a hellscape that was already populated. There was someone in the hole. That's the First of the Fallen.

The First of the Fallen is who I usually mean when I say The Devil. Bit of a misnomer because he's older than the concept of devils. He fell first. He claims to be the first everything. God's first creation. The sounding board the Divine Presence created to talk to while drafting the plans for reality."

Tucker got a funny look on his face "Like when programmers talk to a rubber duck to work through coding problems?"

Constantine half choked on his sandwich and devolved into a wheezing fit of laughter.

"Yes. Fuck— yes. Exactly like that! I'm going to use that the next time I need him angry enough to make a mistake. Rubber Duck. Ha!"

“We've been at each other since the 80's but I actually think things are looking up,” he added, still smiling. “After I sold him my father-in-law as part of my end-of-life planning, the First and I reached something like mutual respect.”

“You’re married?” Danny blurted.

Tucker Foley wasn't sure how to reboot a blue screen on a person who wasn't also a close friend. John Constantine froze like he’d glitched mid-animation. The expression on his face was the same overwhelmed, wide eyed silence Danny used to get back in freshmen year of high school when someone asked if he and Sam were dating and he realized that both answers were too big to contemplate.

“Either Batman downplayed it or that reaction’s getting worse.” Tim muttered.

“Shut up,” John snapped, voice suddenly low and sharp. “It’s fine. Don’t ask.”

“What is it?” Jazz hissed softly, concerned at the obvious mood swing and sudden change in behavior.

“Psychically triggering keywords and phrases,” Tim supplied, swallowing a mouth full of cheese and Bolognese. “Not sure how extensive but try not to mention his wife unless you want to see what a magical panic attack looks like in real time.”

“I love my wife. Fuck off.” John said through gritted teeth.

“Of course,” Tim replied smoothly, not missing a beat. “I’m sure she’s delightful. Are you sure, though?”

“Change the topic,” John growled, eyes flickering with something incandescent. “Now.”

“Okay,” Tim said, backing off. “What do you think of the changes in the Bleed?”

"Bleed?" Danny asked.

"Ghost Zone. I'm pretty sure your parents came up with that name. Pleural space. It wasn't always so green." Tim replied.

"I’ve got a theory, but I need to run it by one of these local Bleed ghosts." John added, wrestling himself back under control. "Preferably one who doesn’t look too human.”

“You want to talk to a ghost?” Valerie asked, reaching under her coat. “I’ve got one right here.”

She produced the canister like she was showing off a pet. 

“Oh wow,” John was genuinely impressed. “That really does look like a soup can. Arf a mo’ to set up.”

He pulled a stub of chalk from his pocket and crouched, starting to scrawl on the apartment floor.

“Death isn’t always destructive,” he explained as he worked. "It can be transformative too. I think the death infused Bleed energy you call ectoplasm is letting things change that shouldn’t be able to. The question with ghosts isn’t just what they are. It’s what they were. This one’s choosing to be a vulture in a fez. I needed to be properly juiced to see what he really was.”

He glanced up, eyes catching green in the light.

“He used to feed on the carrion of souls. A Paraxis demon. Nasty critter.”

“That should do it. Stay back,” he warned, wiping sweat from his brow. “Shouldn’t take long.”

The dazed vulture flopped onto the chalk-lined floor with a noise like a half-deflated football.

John gave it a nudge with his shoe.

“You’re a vulture,” he said flatly. “But you used to be a demon. What’s with the career change?”

The vulture blinked, feathers puffing.

“You can't make me talk about it.”

“First mistake. Now I know you know something. Do you know who I am? Were you in Glasgow summer of '06?”

The bird’s eyes dilated. “Squawk!”

“That’s right. Now take a look at the ground.”

Constantine was standing inside the circle, looming directly over the bird, bands of energy trapping them in the same space. With the two of them on this side of the line, the circle was not just a cage, but a cage match. A clear threat of violence.

The glyphs around the edge of the ring weren’t written in Futhark, Latin, Enochian, or any other kind of ancient language. They were in sharp, angry English:

STAY PUT AND ANSWER THE QUESTIONS YOU PATHETIC LITTLE SHIT STAIN OR I WILL FUCK YOU UP.

“Oh shit,” the vulture mumbled. “Oh fuck. I don't suppose you're here to offer me candy and porn?" He asked hopefully. 

"No." Constantine leaned forward a little emphasizing the size disparity.

“Ah. See—" the bird backpedaled, craning it's neck up, "it's not telling if you already know—" finding a justification for immediately talking, "and you do already know—" it wheedled,

"First of the Fallen told you years ago. You spoke to him. He talks to you—he doesn’t talk to us. I heard he told you everything! But since you forgot" The vulture took a deep breath and explained,

"—We all Hate This! The Demons. The Angels. The binary system. Black and White. Heaven and Hell. The Great Plan. It’s all garbage.”

The bird’s voice broke.

“No one wants to be stuck in it. It’s not just the Abrahamic folks, either. Olympus, Asgard, Duat—every single one of them has a workforce ready to walk off the job. No one wants to be the same thing forever. Even the cushy gigs rot after a century or two. We want out.”

“I think I’m starting to get it,” John muttered, half to himself. “Reality didn’t spring a leak. It got chewed through. The rats gnawed a hole in the hull and now they’re abandoning ship.”

“Exactly!” the vulture said, hopping anxiously. “And you—you’re an infant, comparatively, and you’ve got more pull with Management than I’ll ever get. I’ve been working the same job since the Fall, and the closest thing I ever got to acknowledgement was that one time Lord Buer threw an baby leg at me in passing 1300 years ago. Management sucks. So we quit.”

“We’re everything and everyone who doesn’t want to be here anymore. Better to be nothing and no one then part of the system. We’re ghosts.”

“It’s a labor dispute?” Sam asked, frowning.

“It’s a refugee camp,” the vulture corrected. “I want out. I don’t want the gig, the plan, the obligations—”

"If you wanted to change, why are you" John gestured at the bird as if to encompassing everything about him "basically the same?"

It ruffled further and lost a few feathers in indignation, "Am Not! I'm a completely different type of supernatural scavenger now." It flapped it's wings as if to demonstrate "I had thumbs"

“Well, whatever you are, you and your mates ’re putting pressure on reality and making things go all caddywhompus up here,” John said. “So maybe go get those thumbs back and knock it off.”

“That’s above my pay grade,” the bird replied, looking increasingly nervous. “If you want answers, you’re going to have to take it to the Council. They’re the ones organizing all this.”

It looked stricken, as if it knew it had said too much.  “Um. Please don’t hurt me.”

John Constantine smiled like a shark.

“I won’t,” he said, and popped the thermos open again.

The vulture vanished with a final squawk and a shimmer.

“I can’t believe the ghosts aren’t ghosts,” Sam muttered.

“Eh,” John said, standing and brushing off his coat. “I think some of them might be. Poindexter for sure. He’s silver, and he’s got a solid paper trail. The rest? Could be anyone. You heard the bird. They’re walk-outs. Stowaways. Refugees.”

“How do we get there?” Tucker asked. “It’s getting harder to steal the Specter Speeder now that Danny and Jazz don’t live at home.”

“Do we even need a vehicle?” John asked, stretching his back with a painful crack. “Just because I don’t like ripping holes in reality doesn’t mean I can’t. I drank some ectoplasm earlier. I think I can use the last of it to stitch us a shortcut.”

“Tomorrow,” Tim cut in, pointing at him like a teacher catching a student faking a sick day. “We’re going tomorrow. With gear, rest, and a plan.”

John shrugged. “Right. Tomorrow.”

---

The apartment really was too small for the group. They dispersed Sunday afternoon, each promising to meet again in the morning.

Tim spent rest of the day creating cover stories that would hold under light questioning. He went to both the Foley and Manson households and explained—calmly, confidently—that their children were being scouted for highly competitive Wayne Foundation summer internships. They’d be unavailable for the next week of school and possibly part of Thanksgiving break as they conducted an in-person evaluation for 'culture fit.'

It was incredibly sketchy but apparently Tucker had already applied for several internships, and Sam’s parents were encouraging her to explore 'socially advantageous' extracurriculars. Tim didn't ask. He just folded it all into the narrative.

In the end, the creative writing assignment practically wrote itself.

Valerie turned down the offer entirely. She asked to stay behind. The ghosts were back, and the Red Huntress had a town to defend.

She liked to think she was more approachable than the Masters Blasters—more focused, more grounded, more willing to talk—but she still leaned on a skill set that began with 'shoot first.' She couldn’t just walk away.

Back in his hotel room, Tim Drake peeled off Alvin Draper’s carefully constructed persona for the last time. None of his aliases had felt this clunky and poorly fitted in years. He was looking forward to waking up as himself.

Constantine took a walk to smoke a cigarette and came back with a couple thousand dollars in his pocket. Quite a few residents had put money on spotting the Ghost Boy fighting a new ghost hunting team during the same hour as the 'Mayoral Ghost Hunting Announcement'. The pot had to be split over two hundred times. It was still not a bad pay out for what he put in.

When he got back to the apartment he'd tried to move to the couch for the night to give Danny back his bed. The Fenton siblings vetoed him.

The argument turned out to be unnecessary. The arrangements changed organically. By morning, the spare bed was a tangle of limbs.

Sometime around midnight, Danny had migrated from the couch to sprawl over the older man like a weighted blanket. Jazz, frazzled and shaken when she’d checked the couch and found it empty, had curled up beside them sitting on the rug. She fell asleep leaning on the bed, her cheek resting on folded arms, long hair spilled across the mattress.

When Constantine woke it was a full body twitch that he immediately suppressed into ridged hypervigilance as he took stock of his surroundings and the people touching him. 

—don't move—it's fine —don't mov —okay— okay —be quiet— stay still. — it will be okay— 

Fight. Flight. Freeze.

He sweat through the frozen moments, muscle tense. 

One breath at a time he forced himself to relax again. Eventually his heartrate started to come down as he convinced his body to believe what his mind was telling him.

No threat.

The boy had, once again, buried his face against the center of John’s chest where his sisters core had been. His hand was curled between Jasmine’s slender fingers. Neither of them had stirred.

Above them, the faint glow of plastic stars gave way to morning sun.

Monday.

It had been Thursday when he reported in to the Justice League.

Four days since he’d tried to justify his Q2 expenses.

Four days since the so-called best and brightest learned just how much more battered he was compared to the rest of them.

Four days since they'd most likely realized he didn’t belong on their stage. Not really.

He should go.

Just walk out, like he'd tried to do before at the Nasty Burger— slip through the cracks into the Bleed and shoulder the consequences alone. No team, no witnesses, no collateral. Minimize the fallout by choosing to pay the price himself and spare them from the inevitable.

They were kids. He was going to ruin them. He knew it.

At least Gemma had gotten away. Kicked him while he was down and run. Nice to know she'd been paying attention. Waste of talent, sure—but safer. Cleaner.

It was selfish to want them near.

It was selfish to push them away.

Selfish to keep anyone close.

It was selfish to run off without a plan too.

It was selfish because getting himself killed would just make the end of the world everyone else's problem.

It wouldn't be the first time. It was embarrassing how many of his so called clever plans included his own death.

Death by monster.

An old favorite. Tried and true.

That had been how he'd first learned how toxic his body was. He’d picked a fight with the primordial vampire template, ancient and unspeakably powerful, and hadn't fought back— but managed to win on accident. Poisoned the bastard. 

What a fucking joke.

Were they really about to politely ask the spectral refugees of a thousand pantheons to clear out? Pack it up and go home? He had a few tricks. Some cards up his sleeve. But even for him, it was a bad plan.

His fingers drifted through Danny’s long, fine hair. Boyking. They listened to him. Respected him. But why? If there was a ruling council, why did they need a monarch? And if they needed a monarch, why did they choose a child? The Bleed had only started to change recently. White to red to green—each shift within a few years. So how did these people have a tyrant king to overthrow? A throne to reclaim? A mythos to rally behind?

John was starting to think they were about to find out.

Notes:

Lots of commentary about the structure of Hell here.

References

John pissed off the First of the Fallen by spiking his drink with holy water in the 80s. Then Lucifer abdicated to start a nightclub in 'Sandman' and later 'Lucifer'.

Two Angels took over but it didn't last long. The "key to hell" changed hands several times and eventually lost its meaning as a sign of office. It was last seen in the book 'Locke and Key'

After the angels gave up, the First , Second and Third oldest things down there started ruling hell together in an uneasy truce on the understanding that if the fought each other then it would spread their forces too thin and Heaven would win. John sold his soul to all three of them and promptly committed suicide. They started to fight over his soul. They realized fighting would be the end of everything. The compromise was that they would heal Constantine, cure his lung cancer and try to keep him alive until they could agree on who would get his soul. Hellblazer: Dangerous Habits

This lasted several years until John was able to team up with a certain vengeful succubus to kill all three of them. Several other demonic forces tried to fill the void, including the demon Etrigan in his own title 'The Demon'

The First of the Fallen reincarnated as a Greek fisherman and several years later John helped reinstate him as king of hell as a side effect of his plot to save Astra from Lord Buer. Hellblazer: Critical Mass. This put Ellie in a tight place of taking the blame for assassinating the first Triumvirate. She retaliated by completely destroying Johns found family support structure in 'How to play with Fire'. As a result John sold his soul to The First of the Fallen again. This time he convinced heaven that if he went to hell he would be running the place inside of a century and he would actually be a challenging adversary. Thus the 'light coercion" and "divine intervention' resulting in the dissolution of all current soul contracts.

Also in Hellblazer 'How to play with fire' the First of the Fallen talks about his personal history, his role in the beginning of creation, and his suspicion that *everyone* is miserable regardless of how blessed or damned they are.

Technically Epiphany sold Terry Greaves to the First of the Fallen, but John sealed the deal in a two panel joke in 'Death and Cigarettes' while getting his affairs in order in 2012.

The phrase *arf a mo’* means 'half a moment'. This specific spelling of the east London accent was popularized by my ancestor, cartoonist Bert Thomas. It was part of a propaganda meme where Tommy Atkins asked Kaiser Wilhelm for a smoke break.

The Paraxis Demons are from 'Red Right Hand' and 'Staring at the Wall.' They follow disasters, eating negative emotions and decomposing soul chunks. While fighting to prevent an apocalypse in Glasgow John temporarily distracted a horde of them with a pile of candy and porn before totally kicking their asses with the emotions coming from the 2006 football world cup England v Portugal.

John shifts from Latin to English in his summoning circles sometime in the late 2000's. He still speaks all of those languages and can use them in his spells, but the English stuff is funny. He once used a custom banishing ward that was just a huge drawing of a middle finger on a door with the inscription FUCK OFF.

Hellblazer: Rise and Fall is a standalone story written in 2020 but for timeline reasons I'm pushing it all the way back to 1990. Lucifer was king of hell and he had a few choice words with a still living Thomas Constantine. At the time Lucifer was red with horns and a tail and a ton of homoerotic subtext. He made out with John. It was hot. Shippers take note; when asked, the only explanation given for WHY Lucifer suddenly had horns is, and I quote:

 

"I know you like them"

Chapter 25: Naming

Summary:

In which John Constantine has a few things to say on the subject of Undergrowth

John Constantine was pouting.

Not that he’d ever admit to pouting—he’d say he was brooding, maybe, if pressed. But to everyone else crammed into the tight hull of the Specter Speeder, the verdict was unanimous: this was a full-on pout.

The plan had begun to fray at the edges almost immediately that morning. Tim had walked them through the coordinates they'd compiled—patchwork intel pulled from past excursions, half-remembered geography, and a couple of risky hunches. It hadn’t taken long to realize that the gaps in their knowledge weren’t just inconvenient—they were gaping.

There were just too many unknowns. They didn’t know how physics worked where they were going, if it worked at all. They didn’t know if the atmosphere inside all parts of the Bleed was breathable, only that a few teenagers had managed to breathe in it without immediately dying. And they certainly didn’t have a reliable route, just the strong suspicion that Constantine could brute-force their way through with magic and grit.

In short: they needed transport. Real, insulated, probably-stolen transport.

Valerie had volunteered to stage a ghost attack on the other side of Amity Park—something loud and destructive enough to send the elder Fentons racing away from their home lab. With the distraction in place, it had been laughably easy to break in and swipe the keys to the Specter Speeder.

Which brought them here.

John Constantine, master of the dark arts and occasional savior of humanity, now found himself trying to divine a safe route based on a handful of squishy green fathers and spit while strapped into what was essentially a ghost-powered spaceship. And that, by his reckoning, was an unforgivable offense.

Because this wasn’t just magic anymore. This wasn’t a ritual circle or a tear in the veil between dimensions. This was a cockpit. With seatbelts. With blinking lights. Once you added the technological trappings the space between spaces was, by definition, in space.

He could have dealt with a walk into another universe, even through the back door. Liminal realms, alternate realities, demonic hellscapes—so long as his boots were on the ground, he could cope. Even drifting through the black void of raw unreality? That was just another Tuesday. But the moment he was inside a vehicle designed to traverse those liminalities, the whole thing took on the flavor of sci-fi. Of something technical. Scientific. And therefore, categorically not his problem. 

He muttered under his breath as the Speeder glided through the spectral bleed energy, trailing ghostly contrails in its wake. He didn't even really agree with vehicles in his home reality. Luckily Jazz was driving.

The Ghost Zone stretched endlessly around them, glowing in shades of green and pale turquoise, like seawater lit from beneath. Floating islands drifted lazily through the mist. In the distance, giant doors hung motionless in the void—freestanding portals, some the size of houses, others no bigger than a cupboard. Some swung gently on invisible hinges; others remained locked tight.

From the passenger seat, Danny pointed ahead, his voice calm despite the landscape. “The shape of the Ghost Zone is always changing. I know where some of the landmarks are, and I can usually figure out where other things are in relation to those.”

“Not too different from Hell then,” Constantine grumbled, eyes fixed on a passing rock that looked unsettlingly like a skull the size of a house. "I'll give a nudge if it feels like were too off track." Internally his mind jibbered at the idea of flying a spaceship into hell.

“Time to trade in some soft power, kid,” Constantine muttered, “Do any of your friends owe you anything? Preferably someone big.”

“Big? Yeah,” Danny replied, eyes scanning the spectral fog outside the windshield. “Pandora owes me. We returned her box.”

“Pandora?” Tim blinked. “That doesn’t make any sense. I've only got second hand accounts from the Amazons, but—Pandora is well and truly gone. They should know.”

Danny shrugged. “Don’t know what to tell you, man. The box was scary. The woman was large. She had a spear and... too many arms.”

“Don’t do that,” Constantine interjected sharply.

“Do what?”

“Don’t ever tell someone they’ve got ‘too many limbs.’ Or even imply there’s a correct shape. Easiest way to earn yourself a thousand years of torment from an otherwise delightful snake made of human ribcages. She's probably got full control over her form. Don’t be a knobhead unless it’s on purpose. And while we’re at it—" he addressed Tim. "maybe avoid deadnaming, unless you’re trying to piss someone off. If someone gives you a name, use it.”

“Deadnames?” Tucker blinked. “Wait—she’s not—?”

“They absolutely are,” Constantine said. “Your friend is too, if you think about it. Ask Red Robin over there—he’ll back me up. For every cape who lets that stuff slide, there’s five more who’ll emotionally combust at the wrong name in the wrong room. I could make Superman cry with six syllables and a broadsheet newsie. Names have weight. They’re the bones of most binding enchantments. If you know someone’s old and secret name, it’s probably old and secret for a reason. And if you know it, you can hurt ‘em.”

“I don’t believe you,” Sam said flatly.

“Probably because you don’t think you have one,” Constantine shot back, leaning toward her with a grin. “Sam. That’s short for Samantha, yeah? I bet your parents had a nickname. Something embarrassing... like, I dunno—Samikins?”

He caught the tone instantly, twisted his voice into a high-pitched, mock-affectionate lilt, drawing out the vowels in a pitch-perfect mimicry of a wealthy New England mother: “Wiiiddle Samikins!”

Sam’s face went instantly red. She looked like she was deciding whether to punch him or throw him out of the Speeder.

Constantine pointed at her flushed expression. “Right! And these are your friends. Now picture me doing that in front of your professors or coworkers. You made yourself into someone new, Sam— someone gloomy and dark and mysterious and it was so subtle you probably didn’t notice the first step was giving yourself a new Name. Almost everyone’s killed off a version of themselves. Some more literally than others. Mine tend to come back as monsters but that's not the point.”

He gestured out the window at the dreamlike terrain, where glowing rivers of green mist twisted between floating landmasses like veins of light in a half-dead world. “The point is this is a place of transformation. People’ll be sensitive. So yeah, go hunting for leverage—but don’t hurt your friends and allies for no reason. Keep those cards close.”

Tim sat stiffly in the back row, eyes narrowed. “You should take your own advice.”

His voice was tight. Understandable. The identity reveal was still fresh, still raw. All Tim had intended to do was to tie Alvin Draper to Red Robin. But Tucker had clocked him as a Wayne before they had even spoken. A testament to how airtight Bruce’s public persona was: Timothy Wayne-Drake could out himself as a vigilante and the general consensus would still be that his father was too distracted—or too shallow—to notice.

“Oh, we’re not friends,” Constantine said, unbothered. “We’re coworkers at best. If we were friends, I’d be even more of an arse.”

It was true. John had continued to call Francis Chandler "Chas"  for forty years after he had asked to drop the childish nick-name and go by Frank. The other man had let him and John still didn’t know why.

“Besides,” he added, with a sidelong look, “you wanted to come along.”

Tim didn’t take the bait. “I’m here to make sure a concussed wizard and a bunch of teenagers come back in one piece. Your untimely death would involve too much paperwork.”

He glanced back at the softly glowing sky. One of the massive doors slowly rotated, revealing carvings that looked almost like norse runes—until they shifted again, rearranging themselves into a different language entirely.

“Besides,” Tim went on, “I did my research. I might be able to pull a name or two to hurt you.”

Constantine grinned without looking away from the window. “Hmm. Could be. I’m aces at pain, though, so I doubt it’ll slow me down. But go ahead and pick your moment— I’ll return the favor.”

They drifted in a strange quiet for a few minutes, the hum of the Specter Speeder the only sound besides the occasional beep from the console and the whispering flicker of the green outside. The Ghost Zone was an ocean made of bioluminescence and fog—one with no bottom, no stars above, only the occasional floating island tethered by physics John didn’t trust.

“Could you do that to Undergrowth?” Sam asked, her voice low but firm. “Call him a name that really hurts him?”

John turned to look at the girl, not with disdain or smugness, but something more concerned.

“We’d have to know it first,” he said. “What was he made of?”

“Vines?” Sam offered uncertainly.

“What kind of vines?” John pushed.

“Ropy ones?” she tried again, deadpan.

“No,” John said, frowning in frustration. “I meant the specific species.”

Sam crossed her arms. “Thorny smilax, I think. Why?”

“It’s important,” he said, leaning back. “The avatars of the Green have preferences but that's not one I know. Swamp Thing always mixes it up just to prove he can, but I know how grumpy he gets if his body isn’t at least a little bit mangrove. Jack of the Green is so maple it’s literally his face. Black Orchid’s self-explanatory…” His voice trailed off for a second in thought.

Tucker blinked. “Let me guess, the Coasters were right? —Poison Ivy will make you itch?”

“No, actually. She crossbreeds fly traps, corpse flowers, and pitcher plants. I think she finds carnivorous species ironic.” His lip curled. “Of course Woodrue’s just a little faggot.”

Danny gaped at him.

“What?” John said, matter-of-fact. “I can say it. I’m queer as Freddy Mercury and he’s literally a shitty bundle of sticks. Names and power. That prick has access to one of the three primal wells of life in the cosmos, and he uses it to betray the natural order and undermine the Parliament of Trees. Fuck that guy.”

Jazz didn't take her eyes off her piloting but her brow furrowed. “Three aspects?” she asked. “Pretty sure it’s more complicated than animal, vegetable, mineral. Linnaeus was wrong?”

John shrugged slightly. “Scientific classification systems and magic ones aren't mutually exclusive. The three classes here are animal, vegetable, and Rot. Red. Green. Black.”

“Rot?” Danny echoed. “Like, fungus?”

“Bacteria. Fungus. Microbial life of all kinds. Imagine the worst nightmares of a redwood, given sentience and a grudge. That’s the Black.”

“But ecosystems need decay for the nutrient cycle,” Jazz said. “Microbiomes exist in the guts of every complex animal. We’d die without them.”

John’s eyes flicked to her, surprisingly respectful. “Yeah. Try explaining probiotics to a tiger.”

He leaned back again. “The Green has the plant people, the Red’s got the shapeshifters and the living totems. Changeling, Animal Man, Vixen, King Shark. Viscera and instinct. They hate the Black. The Green hates it too.”

“So… Undergrowth is from the Black?” Sam asked.

“No. Still a plant,” John corrected. “But probably one of the old ones who got burnt by Woodrue’s little coup. Someone disgruntled with current politics, trying a runaround.”

He turned his head, watching the glowing bleed drift past outside the window. “How much do you remember?” he asked Sam.

She shifted, suddenly guarded. “Nothing.”

John winced sympathetically. “Ah, love.”

“What’s so bad about nothing?” Tucker asked, confused.

“The thing about nothing,” John said, voice lower, “is that it can be anything. Your brain fills in the gaps. Or— mine certainly does. Nine times out of ten, I’d rather remember pain than imagine it.”

The glow from the Ghost Zone brightened momentarily as they passed a storm of floating, ember-like motes—tiny blob ghosts that flared and blinked like fireflies.

John coughed into his sleeve. “Far as I can tell, despite all the animal people and plant people running around there’s only one avatar of the Black—and Abby’s… well. It messed with her. You don’t just tap into fundamental forces like that. They tap into you. Her first husband turned into a raven, her second husband is a tree. She's kind of a mess. The worst part is going to be her kid. It hasn’t happened yet, but it’s coming.”

He paused, letting the silence stretch.

“Tefé Holland,” he said at last. “Only living sentient to ever truly belong in all three categories. Red, Green and Black. One for each parent. That’s potential like nothing else. It's going to backfire spectacularly any day now but instead of getting their head on straight, they’re busy pretending to be a houseplant. ”

Tim looked up sharply. “Aren't you Tefé's… dad?”

“Was that your shot? Because Ouch." He sarcastically mimed a hand to his chest as if physically hurt. "Congratulations on your research into painful names Replacement. It’s complicated,” John said.

“It’s always complicated." He continued after seeing Red Robins aborted flinch, "Should probably use some tidy, distant word like surrogate or donor or something but I just don't know anymore. Being biologically human and spiritually Green is how they come by the Red so I'm definitely in there somewhere”

They hit a subtle shift in the Zone and the Speeder bucked slightly as it turned toward a cluster of floating archways.

John braced himself with one hand. “The best I can do for Undergrowth is flip the script. Mock his place in the order. It’s not the name we know that matters—it’s the one we don’t. He’s not the acting Elemental of the Green now, but it sure sounds like he might’ve been one once. There have been thousands of them and they tend to lose identity over time.”

He met Sam’s gaze. “Remind him he’s forgettable. Forgotten. That’s how I'd hurt him.”

“Sounds like I’d better learn some magic,” Sam muttered.

“Why?” John shot back, unimpressed. “You’ve already got weapons. You've got words. Using magic for the heavy lifting is a great way to destroy your life.”

“Backwards magix seems easy enough.”

John rolled his eyes. “It’s not. It looks easy because of the showmanship. Anyone can learn the sounds. But the Zataras don’t just speak backwards words—they resonate. It’s pressure on reality. There’s a mental component. A cost.”

He leaned forward, tone turning grim. “The family paid an upfront price generations ago. Every Homo Magi since chips in to keep the spark going, but it’s not enough in the long run. The price Zee paid for her power is one of the worse curses I can imagine enduring. Even then the words are losing strength with use, so the family guards them and supplements the power by harvesting the worship of crowds. Seriously. Don’t learn backwards magic. Zatanna will rip the secret out of your skull if you get too close. Her little brother Zack? He might just kill you.”

Danny raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t you get your power from demonic deals? You really think it’s safer to piss off a demon than upset Zatanna?”

John didn’t hesitate. “Yes. Zee’s mental manipulation is much scarier.”

“She doesn’t do that anymore,” Tim defended. “Rip thoughts out of minds. There was all sorts of fallout after the Dr. Light incident. The League stepped in.”

“You don’t think she’s still modifying memory around her.” John corrected, his voice low. “You might be right. But if you’re wrong… how would you even know? When exactly did the League forgive her? I'm pretty sure she just started coming round again and no one questioned it.”

He turned to look out the window, suddenly uncomfortable.

“My power doesn’t come from demons. Not really,” he clarified after a beat. “I get it from telling the universe to fuck off. I do that by knowing what buttons to push. Maybe it's just me, but in my experience name-calling is real magic, even if it sounds petty. The demon stuff? That’s just a side effect.”

 

 

---

 

On the other side of the Ghost Portal it was Monday morning and students were heading back to school in both Amity Park and it's sister city, Easton Illinois.

Easton was, predictably, east of Amity—poorer, shabbier. A suburb of a suburb.

Vivian Brown went to Easton High, a school barely held together with duct tape and district neglect. No stellar sports team. No academic acclaim. Most of the people who attended Easton High grew old and died within Easton city limits.

But not Viv.

She was destined for better things. She knew it. That’s what the ghost-hunting internship with Thad and Darren had been about. Vid, Thrash and Download were going to save the world.

Or at least, they had been.

Yesterday.

Before Danny Phantom showed up and made a few excellent, infuriating points about their entire mission. Diplomats. Border towns. De-escalation. Viv hadn’t considered any of that.

But now she had. She had laid awake all night thinking about nothing else.

Vivian Brown wanted to be better. To do better. She wanted to be the first member of her family to do something that mattered. Something real.

And while another team of teen ghost hunters sailed through the Ghost Zone on a world-saving adventure, Vivian did something far more difficult.

She changed the trajectory of her entire life.

She walked into school on Monday morning and committed social suicide.

Vivian Brown joined the debate team.

She didn’t have powers. She didn’t have answers. But she had her voice—and now?

She was going to learn how to use it.

Notes:

I apologize if at some point this story has tuned into a lecture series on how Vertigo has influenced my personal belief system. Just be grateful the Invisibles aren't involved.

Generally speaking John Constantine avoids piloting any vehicle if he can help it. He can drive a car. Technically. He's just very bad at it.

The snake made of human rib cages is Triskelie, mother of succubae. She is not 'delightful' but she will offer a thousand years of torment if you call er by the wrong name.

The six syllables are 'Clark Kent is Superman'. In the UK only extra fancy newspapers are on the broadsheet pages commonly used in America. Nice little sideways compliment to the integrity of the Daily Planet to loop them in with the Times of London.

Chas let John keep calling him Chas because literally everyone else from that group of friends died and if he went by Frank then in a way "Chas" would be dead too and John would be sad about it. John was too dense to notice a good friend being a good friend.

The Coasters are a 1950s band who have a song about Poison Ivy and how itchy a relationship with her would be

I haven't actually read Swamp thing, just the bits that overlap with Hellblazer. Its actually much much more complicated with several more elemental categories, an alien diaspora, and time travel too. Woodrue was only tangentially responsible for the death of the Parliament and I'm playing fast and loose with those events. I've folded the Gray into the Black to simplify the Rot.

Changeling is Beast Boy for those of you coming from other fandoms.

John has a memory gap from Tefes conception that is pretty much exactly like Sams.

Abby Arcane nee Holland was married to Mathew the Raven from Sandman before marrying the Swamp Thing Alec Holland and becoming Queen of Rot. She birthed Tefe Holland from a sentient seed created by the Parliament of Trees after Alec possessed Johns body for a carnal visit discussed in Ch 2 of this story. As John says, *Its Complicated*

In Hellblazer Cult of Cold Flame its revealed that Zatanna Zatara cannot enjoy music anymore as a result of her magic.

The "Dr. Light incident" was from Justice League Identity Crisis. Zee was using her powers to 'fix' villains. Batman left the League for awhile over it. There is some irony here with Constantine being vehemently against the idea of mental manipulation while knowing he is being mentally manipulated. He is holding those two truths in his head at once and not letting them touch.

Viv is a Master Blaster because everyone deserves redemption.

Chapter 26: System Report

Summary:

In which John Constantine has a few things to say on the subject of "John Constantine"

Gemma Constantine woke up with a pounding headache and a pantsuit covered in bird shit.

Blinking against the morning light, she realized she had spent the night slumped on the stoop of a storefront across from Piccadilly Circus. A plump American family of four in matching Union Jack tee shirts traced a wide path around her patch of sidewalk while the children stared openly.

Gemma fought the urge to flip them off.

The details were hazy, but she was pretty sure she’d gotten turned around in Amity Park and somehow walked to London.

That? That was a terrifying thought.

It was one thing for public transit to betray her in creative and improbable ways. It was another thing entirely to absentmindedly walk across the Atlantic Ocean.

She needed to talk to someone. A friend. Someone who knew the general outline of her life but wasn’t part of the magical community. She couldn't think of anyone who fit that description—but she felt oddly certain she’d run into a friendly face if she started walking east toward Kings College. Like the city wanted her to go that way.

The thought sliced through her headache like a knife, and her immediate instinct was to rebel—to head west just to spite it.

But no.

New day. New outlook.

New Constantine. 

She brushed herself off as best she could, turned her face toward the rising sun, and started walking.

Someone was waiting.

 

---

 

Red Robin was busying himself typing on an integrated computer system built into his suits glove. They were still on course flying through the ethereal space of the Bleed. John was sure they were still going the right direction, he could feel it, but it had been long enough that he was starting to wonder which kid would ask if they were lost first.

He was board and he wanted a cigarette.

He leaned into Tims personal space forcing the young hero to stop and look up in irritation,

"Whatcha working on"

"My half of your paperwork"

“Good idea. Never generated paperwork before.” John lied, "Better help me with it."

“Right." Tim deadpanned, seeing through the thin ploy immediately. "I’m sure your FBI handler would agree.” 

“You work for the feds?” Danny asked, curious.

“It was before any of you were born. And ‘work’ is such a strong word. I mostly did whatever I wanted and Agent Turro ran around taking notes. Poor guy. He was easy to mess with.”

“What happened?”

Constantine went quiet, thinking about how to answer. Any conversation was a welcome distraction but there it was again— pain, just like Merc had said.

He didn't like being manipulated. It should have been easy to change the subject, but the nostalgia of old wounds had a powerful pull. He’d liked Agent Turro. A few more months, and he might’ve worn down the man’s principles enough to have some real fun. It had all gone tits up in Los Angeles, but still.

“He got stabbed with a Xhosa hunting spear,” John said eventually.

“That’s not a story and you know it,” Tucker frowned.

“I don’t like talking about it? I was his psychopomp. It doesn’t get much more intimate than that.”

“You guided a ghost to its destination?" Sam asked "How?”

“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil—because I’m the baddest motherfucker down there." He drawled, "I was dead at the time, obviously.”

“Dead? How dead?” Tucker still didn't feel like he knew anything about this guy.

“Good question." John pointed and grinned "Smart! You already know there's a big difference between dead and mostly dead, just ask Miracle Max. This was dead-dead. Let’s call it ‘extra crispy.’”

Red Robin snorted as if he'd just heard a mildly amusing joke but didn't share with the group.

“How many times have you died?” Sam asked, curious.

John watched Tim open a second document on his glove computer. He wasn't even trying to hide it as he started taking notes.

“Really depends on how you define death. Even the scientists agree its a sliding scale.”

“So your scale would be what—functional alcoholic to extra crispy?”

“Sounds about right.”

“Legally, you have four death certificates,” Tim interjected.

“Good to know. At least one of those is completely fake. Bureaucratic 'steak tartare', served by Turro to get me out of prison. There’s plenty of other times I did more of a ‘well done’ and kept it quiet enough that no major government noticed. Pretty sure the first time was when I drowned in the River Alt after a botched summoning. Would that count as 'sous vide'? Dunno. Bad metaphor. Truth is I lost track in the ’90s."

He shrugged, "There’s always a chance my identical twin killed me in the womb and we’re all just living in his magically overpowered hallucination.”

“You have an evil twin?”

The question came from Jazz up in the drivers seat— She hadn’t meant it to sound so incredulous. She was just trying to get a read on the man.

“Evil twin? Don’t be ridiculous!” Constantine burst out laughing. It was sudden and loud—an unhinged sort of laugh that made the Spectre Speeder's walls ring faintly in the green light.

The kids stared, then snickered along, caught off guard. Even Tim cracked a brief smile before ducking his head.

"That does sound like a corny horror movie twist" Sam added with a smile.

“No, no—” Constantine gasped between fits of laughter, wiping at the corners of his eyes, “I said identical not evil— it's just— if you want to be technical— we both agreed— I’m the evil one.”

The laughter from the kids abruptly petered off.

John rolled his eyes with exasperation.

“What? I’m self-aware,” he gestured to himself with a vague, dismissive flick of his cigarette-less fingers. “You really think this—” he motioned to his stained trench coat, bruised face, and three-day stubble—“is what a Sorcerer is supposed to look like?”

Jazz gave him a long look over her shoulder. “So… you’re not denying the ‘evil’ part?”

John tilted his head. “No point, is there?” His voice had that faint edge again, something brittle beneath the last dregs of his Laughter. “I’ve made a mess of things more times than I’ve cleaned ‘em up. Burned bridges, gambled with souls, screwed over people who trusted me. It’s not just what I’ve done, it’s who I am.” He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. "I’m halfway decent at pointing myself at a bigger bastard, but I'll never be 'capital-g' Good the way he was.”

There was a pause. The only sound was the faint hiss of the Speeder gliding through the Zone.

“Sounds more like a guy who’s trying to tip the scales back,” Red Robin said softly. He didn’t look up from the data pad. “That’s not evil. That’s just tired.”

Jazz spoke up again. She’d caught something strange in all that—a missing detail.

“If you had a twin what was his name?”

“We just did this,” John sighed. “Weren’t you paying attention? Names have power.”

“Yes, they do. And you’re not saying his. Why?”

“Because it's annoying and I’m a territorial prick who doesn't like to share,” He crossed his arms defensively.

“…What?”

“Oh,” Tim said after a moment, looking up from his notes. “I think I get it?”

“There’s the Detective. That was quick.”

Tim hesitated. He had been paying attention to the impromptu lecture on the nature of painful names.

John gave a the smallest of nod in encouragement. “Go on. What do you see?”

“Names have power right?" Tim asked, "Your name has power but it's not yours.”

“Wait—what?” Danny looked back and forth between the two of them.

“Killed in the womb." Tim explained, "If only one twin was ever born, then from the parents’ perspective there's no need to pick a second name. It's two different people, both named John Constantine. He only has that name because the other twin died.”

“That’s… awful.”

“Yeah." John sighed, "Took some heavy ritual magic and reality-warping hallucinogenics to even meet the guy. We made eye contact across the temporal rift a few times growing up, we both got curious." Johns voice started loud but dipped, getting quieter with each sentence. "Once we were in the same room we pretty much immediately settled on mutual hatred. I swear he used some kind of enchanted hair product—mine just doesn’t shine like that. He was so bright it hurt to look at 'em. Long gold locks and a toga like an Aryan Christ— Actually enjoyed and finished Merchant Taylors’— Loved his dad— Always right—"

His last words were petulant and almost silent, "Real insufferable git.”

He trailed off. So much for avoiding painful nostalgia, John thought. He’d forgotten the rest of Merc’s observations. Thinking about pain led back to thinking about family.

 

He should have just told a spaceship full of children about his time trying to fuck Turro.

 

---

Danny sat quietly, thinking about Keys and guilt and what it meant to never be born.

John had used phrases like "I went back" and “only one of us was getting out of there” when he first explained things back at the House. He’d sounded so tired and broken at the time that Danny had imagined some kind of villainous death trap—a hard choice in a locked room slowly filling with lava or poison or something equally dramatic.

Living with survivor’s guilt from being born at all? Danny thought that was both deeply tragic and incredibly stupid.

Then again… Dani had felt the same guilt about her siblings—the inviable clones who could have had lives but had melted painfully instead. The memories of those deaths—the ones he’d caused himself before he knew better—hit harder when layered with her feelings.

She’d been trying to live more fully not just for herself, but for them. Every moment was a monument to joy. For them.

He caught another unpleasant glimpse of how she'd felt about the Dr's Fenton. Not parents. Not really.

She'd lived those happy moments for them and for him.

Danny sat and thought about how he could do that too. How he could try to be happy so that they wouldn't have died pointlessly. He didn’t know if he was strong enough to do it half as well as she had—but he could always try.

He remembered a meteorological event he'd been looking forward to before and wondered what the date was. 

 

---

 

Nicolai Technus hated debriefs almost as much as John Constantine did.

Ironically, he had no problem with paperwork.

Documentation was the root of all scientific progress. Computers, after all, were just glorified documentation engines—archive machines and logic sorters masquerading as intelligence. But standing in front of the Ghost Council, justifying his actions to the ignorant masses that called themselves his superiors?

That was an indignity he barley tolerated.

He preferred his victories loud. Shouted to the sky. The covert nonsense he'd been quietly running in the background for the last five years grated and these reports were the worst part of the entire ordeal.

The calm recitation of facts felt suspiciously like bureaucratic groveling.

He spoke to the gathered ghosts with forced neutrality. "The information blockade remains impervious to digital intrusion. No ghost or digital construct has breached the dimensional firewall in either direction. That front holds."

The Council remained silent and shadowy, seated at three curved tables in a nearly complete ring around him.

Technus continued, voice flatter now, hiding his resentment, "However, we have confirmed analog data leakage. An agent of the Earth-based superhero collective has physically entered Amity Park and maintains regular contact with the dimensional boundary. The human known as Red Robin is gathering intelligence."

A ripple passed through the council at the name.

Technus sneered. "Yes. Part of the Bat-family. Again. Which means our timeframe for clean containment has just shortened considerably. Elimination may be necessary. A total removal. No memory, no resurrection, no trail. If we are to maintain the isolation of Amity Park, he cannot be allowed to leave."

Nocturne hissed, his stars shifting and dancing inside him.

"We have removed over five hundred from their global network in just the last six months," he said, tone derisive "Do you believe the living will not notice their absence eventually?"

"They already have noticed,"  said Frostbite, his icy arm shimmering with refracted light. "That's why they keep sending more. And more. And more. Even if they can't remember, they still notice. Perhaps we should ask whether the failure lies with the guardian of the firewall." His eyes flashed as they locked onto Technus.

Technus stiffened. "The firewall is holding. That’s not the problem."

"No," A third voice rasped, earthy and wet—Undergrowth. "But the pattern remains. The heroes come. They get too close. And they vanish. That leaves fingerprints."

"And who should be scrubbing those?" Technus snapped, then caught himself. 

"I maintain the blockade." He tried to stay calm, "I tag every breach. I isolate Phantom. I give him only the ghosts you authorize. I rewrite the search algorithms to keep the world’s attention away from Amity. I can't control what the humans feel when their champions disappear. I'm not running their myths. That would be the purview of dreams."

A murmur of disapproval ran through the Council.

"Perhaps," Nocturne said with a cold smile. "But perhaps you should have predicted Red Robin’s interest. You know how his kind operates."

"He’s a variable," Technus muttered. "A statistical outlier. There's always one."

"Outliers become patterns," Nocturne replied. "If they come to expect that investigating Amity Park is a suicide mission, they will escalate. Send gods. Send monsters."

"That’s not a Technus problem," he bit out. "That’s a structural problem. That’s your problem."

Another ripple of discontent,

Undergrowth’s mossy voice cut in. "Are we not gods and monsters? We only need a little more time. The Mechanism is nearly complete. The humans think it will destroy us. They have no idea what it’s truly for."

From the shadows behind the tables a nameless Observant floated forward—an eyeball in a high necked cape.

"The Ghost Investigation Ward is doing exactly what it is destined to do. Their arrogance makes them useful. Their fear makes them efficient."

"The boy suspects," someone in the back whispered.

Nocturne nodded slowly. "Yes. But we have kept him caged with comfort. He sees only the ghosts we allow. He learns only what we permit. So long as the town remains sealed, so long as he believes he is choosing this path..."
He smiled faintly. "He will continue to choose a path that leads to the Crown of Fire."

Technus let out a low electronic hum—somewhere between a laugh and a snarl.

"Red Robin will not play by those rules," he said. "He’ll dig. He already has. He won't see a hero or a king — just a hostage. And he won't be wrong."

Silence again.

"I’ll handle him," he said. "But don’t expect me to clean up after the next one. Or the one after that. You want to stop making martyrs? Call Ghostwriter. Build a better story."

The Council said nothing. The silence was thick and judgmental.

So Technus said nothing louder. He turned and stormed dramatically out of the meeting just to be done with it.

He didn’t know who he’d been before 'death'. The memories were fragmented—a tangle of pain, noise, and heat. He only remembered the moment after: the realization that he was free of it. The feeling of the crystalized free will that now functioned as his CPU. His ghost core.

He’d named himself after truths, not lies.

Technology is superior. Emotion is inefficient.

That should have been enough identity for anyone.

People liked to speculate. They thought he was Tesla’s ghost. Technus didn’t correct them. If they wanted to believe he was the errant spirit of a famous techno genius, fine. Let that story work for him. But it wasn’t true. The only thing he and Tesla shared was a contempt for Edison and a love of voltage.

Because Tesla wouldn't quote Ghostbusters under his breath or hum the Transformers theme when he worked. Whatever else he was, Technus was knew he was definitely from the '80s.

The 1980s. Not the 1880s.

Technus watched for threats, for leaks, for data breaches, but in-between he watches the seemingly endless stream of internet content for something else. He would never admit it but he was looking. For a name, maybe. For an origin. For more data.

Technus scours the internet looking for himself and is too distracted by his vanity to notice the Speeder already making it's way towards the council chambers.

Notes:

I'm not sure if you've noticed but lately I've been doing these chapter notes by reading the chapter and commenting on it in the order that the subject matter comes up in the narrative. At some point I will go back and do this for the early chapters too. I might standardize my citations as well when I do that but in tn the mean time it's all a bit ramble-y.

Gemma traveled by Synchronicity Wave and it's a little bit freaky. She's trying not to fight it.

Agent Frank Turro was an American FBI agent who worked with John during his time in America in 2000. He was an over arcing character introduced in issue 146 'Hard time' and died in issue 174 'Ashes & Dust in the City of Angels'. John flirted with him constantly and invited him to a three way once but he said no. Ashes & Dust was also the time John died in a fire and got 'extra crispy'. Most of that story is Turros POV trying to figure out how/why John died.

There's a only single panel of Johns ghost helping Turros ghost get up off the floor after he's been stabbed so the reader really doesn't know how the psychopomp thing works either.

The ad lib of Pslam 23 is actually something John said to his brother a few minutes before killing him.

John drowned after a botched summoning when he was 13, but only in the Tom King run. I'm pretty sure this is the earliest death but it might have only been a near-death experience.

Usually referred to as 'The Golden Boy' Johns twin was introduced fairly early in Hellblazer with issue 35 but he comes up a few more times later in the series. He was an ass who sprouted crap like this:

"I am still the shining one - while you remain no more than the banished sickly boy grown old in grotesque parody of my righteous life."

Yeah. Fuck that guy.

Merchant Taylors School uniforms appear in the flashback sequence in Tom Kings "Rise and Fall" just before John drowned in the river Alt but that's the only time we see them and the school was never mentioned by name. I have a fanon that little John worked hard to charm his way into the expensive and prestigious boarding school on an academic scholarship for no reason other than to avoid his dad, but he dropped out.

References to D-stabilized, the Danny Phantom episode where Dani and the other clones are introduced

Finally the Ghost Council! Plotting plotters who plot things! Shout-out to author Nanenna and the whole Phandom for the idea that Amity Park is a fishbowl and the ghosts are trying to enact very specific plans by controlling what happens there.

** I'm going to be cutting back on my comment interactions a bit to focus on IRL stuff. Please keep letting me know what you think, I just might not get back to you**

Chapter 27: Soul Sausage

Summary:

In which Pandora has a few things to say on the subject of John Constantine.

TW discussion of suicide

Tricia Chandler never actually forgave the man who threw her out a window during her summer hols when she was thirteen.

She said she did. Of course she said she did.

John Constantine and Francis "Chas" Chandler were so close it felt like you couldn’t know one without the other. She loved her grandfather so she’d tried to be polite to his best mate.

Her gran, Renée, made no such effort when she was alive. Renée had blamed that deadbeat wizard—loudly—for every grievance her husband suffered in the last fifty five years. Everything from Tricia’s coma and kidnaping at age ten to Brexit.

Lately, Tricia Chandler was starting to think Renee might have been right. Not about Brexit, but the rest of it.

Tricia Chandler doesn’t know why she started going to morning service at Saint Mary’s de Strand. The King’s College Chapel was clear across the river from her parents’ place. The parish might the oldest in London, but that didn’t mean much in a city made almost entirely of layers of history.

She doesn’t know that her favorite pew sits where the Maypole in the Strand once stood— the site of the first organized hackney service in the world.

She doesn’t know that, until recently, the tiny church stood in the road.

She doesn’t remember the traffic moving around it for decades— a constant prayer wheel of overworked, underpaid cabbies keeping a centuries-old tradition alive.

Her granddad remembered. That was his job. Chas kept The Knowledge. He would tell her, if he could.

Tricia Chandler doesn’t know what stood there before the church but it knows her.

It follows her across the city— in and out of classes, to the grocer’s and back.

A sliver of what makes London London sits beside her when she visits her grandfather on life support at the Royal Brompton Hospital.

She prays for him at the holy site consecrated in honor of ten thousand London cabbies.

She prays he finds a safe route home.

She doesn’t ask herself what John Constantine would do. Tricia already knows—deep in her bones—that this is his fault.

She just wishes she had someone to talk to about it.

---

Pandora’s Island Parthenon was a white edifice of marble, majestically formed from a mishmash of Ionic, Doric, and Corinthian columns banked by Hellenistic-era statuary.  The combination of every Greek architectural cliché at once confirmed what Tim already suspected:

Whoever lived here had never actually been to ancient Greece.

Some of the statues weren't even trying to be period specific, modern clothing and armor and was that a Bat Symbol- Tim craned his neck to look back on the 6 foot tall marble statue of a woman in a cowl but it was gone too fast and he couldn't be sure.

The Speeder hadn’t fully settled when John Constantine jumped out, already fishing for his cigarettes. By the time the others joined him, he had a match flared to life.

Jazz Fenton scowled at him. “Thanks for holding off this long, I guess?” 

John exhaled a long drag of smoke and turned halfway toward her, one hand jammed into his coat pocket. “Relax, I had a bad experience smoking on a spaceship back in 2016, so I try to avoid it but its not necessary. When I’m concentrating, you won't smell a thing.”

Jazz raised an eyebrow and stepped closer, skeptical. “Really?”

Red Robin backed him up.

“Really. He smokes on the Watchtower and even Animal Man doesn’t complain. The Kryptonians say it’s the coat that stinks more than whatever he’s actually smoking.”

John gave a snort, “Washing gannex is a pain, this old slicker’s more of a fight than it’s worth.”

“You smell like hell,” Jazz muttered, moving to pass him.

“I do not,” John objected without looking at her.

“You do.”

The deep voice echoed off the marble. Everyone turned.

Pandora—a towering, blue-skinned woman holding a spear—stood silently a few yards away. She had approached silently, the clink of her Spartan-style armor only now registering as she stepped forward into the open. Four massive arms rested at her sides, two clasped behind her back, the other pair relaxed on her weapon. Her dark eyes surveyed the group without emotion.

John craned his neck up to look at her and thrust his hand out. “John Constantine,” he said. “Wizard.”

Pandora bent slightly, enclosing his hand in one of her massive fists. Her grip was almost ceremonial.

“Pandora,” she replied. “You are known to us, John Constantine. Kua I'ipa speaks of your place in this world and your actions against him and his sworn duties.”

John’s composure cracked slightly. His eyes widened, and he yanked his hand back, shoving both into his coat pockets. “Kua I'ipa is here?” he asked. “He’s a 'ghost' now? Like you?”

She nodded slowly. “Indeed. One who, I’m sure, will be eager to have words with you.”

Danny floated up beside John, rising slightly above the ground without realizing it. He looked uneasily between the wizard and the warrior. “Pandora?” he asked, “What’s going on?”

Pandora’s face softened—barely. “Whatever do you mean, child?”

Danny glanced at the others, then back at her. “I mean… everything. Why am I king?”

Pandora lowered her gaze, folding all four arms across her chest as she sighed. “I tire of this farce. You are king because you are well-suited to it.”

Danny’s brows knit. “That doesn’t answer the question.”

Pandora looked away, her voice was flat as she continued.

“You are well-suited because we have made you so. You are what we need. We have found ourselves with an excess of free will. A mortal is a being of free will. We desire a leader capable of moving and manipulating the very fabric of the Infinite Realms. Someone who supports our liberation— and who won’t kill us all.”

John blinked rapidly, staggering a half-step backward. He didn’t like where this was going.

His mind reeled, assembling broken pieces. Free will. Free will that smelled of Death. Kua I'ipa. Paraxis Demons. Change. Choice. The ultimate choice. 

He glanced at the island’s terrain—the green buildings, green sky, flickering green light— and suddenly felt filthy.

He dropped his cigarette, staring at the ember as it fizzled in the green ground.

“Shit,” he hissed. “I’m breathing it.”

He turned inward, scrambling for a glimpse at the residue he’d let fester inside himself —something he'd ignored for too long.

There. At the center of his chakra. No longer sloshing around but crystalized like a cyst in his soul.

Wrong.

It didn’t matter how much power it held—

It was Wrong.

He looked at the kids. At Danny so full of the stuff his eyes were green too. Halfa, what a joke. Amalgam, more like.

The humans were the ghosts here? That had been in Red Robin’s briefing. He was sure of it.

He didn’t test it.

He just reached and phased into his own chest— to rip out the nascent ghost core.

The scream was silent but the pain was not.

He collapsed to his knees and vomited violently into the glowing grass. The pebble of crystallized free will  joined the cigarette butt on the ground as it rolled from his trembling fingers, glinting green.

It would’ve hurt more if he’d let it grow.

Tears stung his eyes.

Red Robin knelt beside him instantly. “What the hell?”

Danny floated lower. “John, are you okay?”

Sam hovered behind them, trying to see past Tim’s shoulder. “What happened?”

John groaned, wiping bile from his mouth. “It’s in the air, it’s in the ground—.”

Pandora approached without urgency, arms still crossed, towering over him like an ancient statue.

John stared up at her from his place in the dirt made of people, “To be or not to be,” he muttered. “I’m going to kill them. I’m going to kill them all.”

Tim stood, voice low but firm. “John Constantine. Explain yourself.”

He vaguely registered that Red Robin didn’t use the Batman growl when he wanted to be heard. That was a Nightwing voice— commanding but still grounded and human.

John swallowed hard and sat back on his heels, panting. “Where we go when we die is mostly shaped by expectation,” he said slowly. “Abrahamic tradition has Heaven and Hell. But there’s also a third place.”

He pulled out another cigarette with shaking fingers, just to scrape the taste out of his mouth. “For a long time, there was a monster feeding on a very specific kind of soul. The kind neither Heaven nor Hell wanted. The ultimate expression of Free Will: the choice not to be.”

He lit it and took a drag, eyes glassy. “1.3 percent of all human life ends in suicide. Or it did, last I checked. Most people—if they survive—can tell you the last thought isn’t joy. It’s ‘oh, shit.’ but there's exceptions to every rule. The rare ones who meant it all the way to the end, who never looked back, who honestly believed any change was better than continuing— not misled or deceived by dark powers, the ones who CHOOSE.”

He reached into the air and grabbed a floating ghost-blob, "There's a place." He tugged at the blob, "Not a place really. A meat grinder. A meat grinder on the border of purgatory."

“Look at this!" he shook the blob, "It’s a slurry of willing souls, reduced to constitute parts and mixed up with the Bleed.” He tossed it idly. “A soul sausage made from sweepings.”

Tucker’s voice was low, grim. “And the monster that prefers sausages?”

John’s mouth twisted. “Killed it. Killed myself to get close then I killed it more. Talked a friend into taking over—one with a guilty conscience and suicidal ideation of his own. But Chris… he wasn’t okay.”

He locked eyes with Pandora. “If this is where the third place leaks into the Bleed… if this is Free Will... Then where’s Chris Cole?”

Pandora didn’t blink, “What does a guilty heart, shunned and abandoned by its people, call itself?”

Sam took a step forward half guessing the answer base on the worst scenario she could think of. “Pariah,” she said quietly. “It calls itself a Pariah.” She turned to John, eyes wide. “You knew Pariah Dark.”

“I knew a mopey artist from Glasgow.”

Pandora’s tone remained steady, nearly ritualistic. “Time has been manipulated. We are a centuries-old people. You gave him power—and the assumption he would be better than what came before. His liminality was uneven. Inconsistent. He went mad. Now he sleeps above the well where the Third Place touches the Infinite.”

John wobbled back to his feet, unsteady.

The teens exchanged glances, tension thrumming through the space.

“This is…” John croaked. “There’s more, isn’t there? Plans within plans.”

He looked up at Pandora—

But before she could answer—

“TIME OUT!”

Notes:

References

Tricia Chandler is Chas Chandler’s granddaughter. She was born in Hellblazer #84 (1994), thrown out a window during Stations of the Cross when John had amnesia, and features heavily in All His Engines (later adapted into the animated film City of Demons).

The Knowledge—as in, the real-world test required to become a London cabbie—is discussed in Chas: The Knowledge. Chas’s dynamic with John is often framed like he’s an idiot, but that ignores the fact that he mapped all of London into his head.

As of Hellblazer: Black Label #1, Chas is dying of good old-fashioned “standing too close to John Constantine for too many years.” The specific diagnosis hits like a gut punch. John offers to curse the rest of the hospital to save him; Chas tells him to fuck off. As he should.,

If I had an editor or a publisher—or even a beta reader—someone would probably advocate for “readability” and talk me out of putting every idea I’ve ever had into a narrative blender but here we are.

What we know so far

Empathy is the Enemy and Red Right Hand take place in 2006. A rogue agent from the War in Heaven sets up a loophole to harvest the souls of the willingly suicidal, supported by cultists of the Oran Heresy who claim suicide is divine. There’s a virus that causes shared emotions, a lot of people die from exposure to Constantine’s concentrated angst, and John bribes Paraxis demons with candy. FIFA saves the day. Chris Cole (reformed murderer) gets put in charge of all future suicidal souls.

Then:
Lower-level workers from across various pantheons realize they can use this concentrated soul-energy to transform themselves and escape to the Bleed.

Chris Cole goes mad with power, becomes Pariah. He was already dead, so not a halfa, but he becomes the first human soul to form a ghost core from third-place suicides.

Kua L’ipa realizes he can semi-retire from guarding humanity from the nameless Beast of Revelation, because the Hellblazer crew already killed it in Red Sepulchre. The ghost’s identity will be obvious if you Google its usual form and powerset, but I’ll leave that spoiler up to you.

Time dilation has been applied so all of ghost history fits into the past 20 years. Clockwork is responsible. Of course he is.

Clockwork has an unexpected Hellblazer origin story (hinted at in his conversation with the Ghost Writer). He commissions a story about John’s pain to “make him known”—much like this fic.

Humans manipulate ectoplasm better than ghosts. The Ghost Council would prefer a human leader with a ghost core. After some failure(s), they shut Amity off five years ago to raise the perfect ruler in controlled conditions.

Superheroes noticed. Investigations were launched. Teams disappeared. Jacob Marlow and Bruce Wayne hijacked Luthor’s anti-resurrection policies to funnel research through the more disposable GIW instead. Wildstorm and Batfam members are missing. Bruce forgot.

Last September, Danny turned 18 and moved in with Jazz. Then he was captured by the GIW.

The Ghost Council has tricked the GIW into building a “death ray.” Its purpose is unknown—for now.

Last week, excess third-place energy and emerging sentience overloaded reality. Psychics around the world noticed. Mercury called for help. Gemma headed for the eye of the storm.

Yesterday, the British government noticed too. Agent Snow was dispatched. Trinity College sent a magic librarian.

Jack and Maddie still haven't noticed anything wrong- John is still shaking off 15 years of love potion poisoning- Epiphany got ganked by an angry succubus- Danny is struggling with memories from absorbing Dani- Vlad got hit with a rock- at least one Masters Blaster is going to try diplomacy- House of Mystery is trying to get back together with it's ex- and someone somewhere is being blackmailed by John for something that happened about 30 years ago!

In-between all of that Constantine keeps getting distracted and musing on every single traumatic event of his 100+ year life.

Is that everything? I think that's everything.<

.

Chapter 28: Normal Bartender

Summary:

In which a bartender fails to say a few things on the subject of John Constantine

Gemma Constantine had been walking for half an hour in what had felt like sensible heels when she’d boarded a plane for Seattle four days ago.

This was getting ridiculous.

She was trying—she really was—but it sure felt like wandering around acting like a crazy person was smoothly transitioning to wandering around thinking like a crazy person and that was sure to lead to getting institutionalized like a crazy person with no further chance of wandering around at all.

She needed a shower.

She needed food.

She needed her pounding headache that sprung up the moment she left Amity Park to stop for one goddamn moment so she could think clearly and process the last week.

She needed—

"You look like you need a drink."

She needed a drink.

The man in the green plaid shirt was unlocking his shop for the morning. The dark window behind him revealed tables with chairs stacked on top for the night. It appeared to be some kind of bar. This close to the waterfront, it was almost certainly a fancy cocktail bar she couldn’t afford.

“Come on in. We’re open.”

“No you’re not.” Gemma countered.

“Names Harry Bailey, and it’s my place. We’re open if you need me to be. Which I’m pretty sure you do.”

“There’s someplace I need to be going...” she said—but even as the words left her mouth, she realized she was wrong. The feeling that had been pulling her across the city ended here.

The extremely handsome blue eyed proprietor, Harry, pushed his long brown bangs back and smiled like he knew exactly where she was headed.

“C’mon. I can do you a fry-up too. On the House.”

 

At the back of the dimly lit restaurant, the bartender mixed a complicated-looking fruity drink and set it on a cocktail napkin two seats over from where Gemma sat down. Gemma stared at the drink skeptically.

He then pulled a Tynt Meadow from the icebox and handed her the unopened bottle along with a tulip glass and a bottle opener.

She stared at the beer too.

“You don’t strike me as someone who’s going to trust the mysterious bartender,” Harry explained. “I thought we could skip the step where you offend my establishment by accusing me of messing with the drinks.”

Gemma sighed, cracked the cap, poured the bottle and took a drink before placing the rounded side of the mostly full glass against her temple. It was colder than the beer deserved but exactly the right temperature for her pounding headache.

“Right. And that?” She gestured at the cocktail.

“Your friend doesn’t mind the situation at all.”

Gemma looked at the space next to the glass more intently, trying to determine if it was somehow more inhabited than she’d initially thought. It seemed empty but she couldn’t be completely sure there wasn’t a ghost there.

“Wow." Harry was watching her watching nothing, “Your first thought was magic? You really are a Constantine.”

Her eyes snapped back, suspicious. Of bloody course.

“You know John?” She accused,

“I know of him. He’s sort of a friend of the family? I went no-contact with them before he even came into the picture though. So no—we’ve never met.”

She sighed. This wasn’t what she’d meant when she longed for someone to talk to. But it was what she had.

“He’s not banging your parents or something, is he?” She ment it as a joke but was tired enough that the words came out resigned.

The host choked, looked down and blushed adorably. “Uhhh…”

Gemma couldn’t help but grin a little at his flustered reaction.

“Oh my God, he is!”

“No!” the man defended too quickly, stumbling over the words and waving his hands. “At least I don’t think he is? I don't even know how that would work— It’s technically possible but—no. He’s just—no! He’s been really good for—things would’ve been a lot worse if—I left and he was just—they’ve been arguing for years but—um—it’s a hard relationship to describe.”

“That all sounds about right. Has anyone ever told you that you are terrible at explaining things?”

“Yes, actually. Being enigmatic is a tragic and debilitating hereditary condition. I’ve got the purple lanyard for my disability card and everything.” He sounded exasperated and he rolled his eyes as he said it but Gemma was left unsure if he was joking or not. There actually was a bit of purple peeking out of his collar that could have been the official lanyard for invisible disability…

He pulled his plaid jumper close before she could be sure.

“I know it can get extremely irritating, but that’s my life. It’s not important anyway. I’m not important. Just a guy. Just a normal guy. I’m very good at listening though. That’s what I am. A good listener. A good host.”

“Uh huh. And your bar just happened to be open for me specifically. What were you before you were a ‘just guy’?”

“Still a good listener and a bartender.”

“Not a child or a baby or a teenager or—”

“Nope. Perfectly normal bartender.”

“Normal bartenders have childhoods.” Gemma shot back.

“Not this one. Look—you came in for a reason, right? You need to talk. Talking about me isn’t going to fix anything. You know that, right?”

“Right. Well… I guess I’m perfectly normal too? Or at least I'm trying to be. Or I was? I’m starting to think normal is overrated.”

“Perfectly normal wouldn’t have such a pretty necklace.”

It was like flipping a switch. Gemma didn’t even think. She smashed the empty glass bottle against the bar top and held the remaining jagged shards by the neck to create an impromptu weapon.

She went from relaxed to wild eyed desperation in a heartbeat.

She bared her teeth and pointed the shiv at his face.

“The fuck did you just say?”

Harry panicked and scampered backwards out of arms reach. “Jesus Christ, Gemma."

“I never told you my name."

"Calm down!”

"You can’t have it!”

“Of course not.” He forced himself to stop yelling and spoke softly, hands half-raised like she was a spooked horse. “Clearly yours. Not going to take it.”

“How did you see it?”

He frowned. “Was I not supposed to?”

“It’s under my shirt.”

“It’s glowing.”

“No. It’s not,” she insisted.

“Okay. Guess I’m less normal than I thought. Everyone slips up occasionally. Doesn’t mean I don’t want to help. I'm sorry, I don't normally interrupt the story. Deep breaths. Do you want to put the bottle down now, or is it providing emotional support?”

The tip sparkled with spent beer and trembled in the air. It had nicked her hand, and a small bead of blood formed between her knuckles before she slowly lowered it.

“Uh… sorry.” She set the glass shard down and ran her hand through her hair, leaving a trail of blood that she didn’t seem to notice.

A hesitant voice came from the door. “Hey Gem… um, is this seat taken?”

Tricia Chandlers shoes crunched on shattered glass as she approached the bar and sat down in front of the cocktail that had been laid out for her.

A familiar face. Someone who would understand exactly what it meant to have seen her uncle alive and well less than 12 hours ago. Gemma felt like she was going to collapse with relief.

“I’m having a rough week,” she admitted with a manic edge to her voice and glass in the cuff of her stained pantsuit.

Tricia was undeterred.

“Me too. Tell us about it?”

 

To Gemma’s absolute shock—she did.

---

 

Constable Beryl Hutchinson had recently started a new beat in South London.

She’d heard of John Constantine in passing—infamous, tangentially connected. London was sprawling, but the community was small. He’d been a friend of a friend of an acquaintance back when she was still a teenager. She’d never met him. She wasn’t interested in magic, or fate, or demons, or death. She certainly didn’t know where his wife lived.

She was too busy trying to be a good cop.

And that was hard. Because she used to be so much more.

Constable Hutchinson had a secret—something she hadn’t mentioned to her partners on the force or her classmates at the academy. It wasn’t that long ago she’d been someone entirely different.

She used to be a vigilante.

She used to be an honorary Bat.

Being a superhero felt unreal now. Like a fever dream that had happened to someone else. It had been too much, too fast.

Just when she’d found her rhythm—just when people were starting to take her seriously—the most important person in her life had been slaughtered by a Robin clone. Then Nightwing had convinced her to do something unforgivable to Batman’s corpse.

The twitching, wretched thing that clawed out of the Lazarus Pit hadn’t been Bruce. Not really. But it had still worn his face.

She had fought her way out of Namba Parbat, half-drowned in that cursed lime green light. Then she dragged her mentor home and buried him in good clean English soil.

She grew up.

She stayed street-level.

She built boundaries.

She did what she had to in order to stay sane. She told the Justice League—politely, and repeatedly—to stop calling. She crossed the Channel maybe once a year. She worked inside the system now. British threats on British soil. Not an inch more.

She was not the Squire.

She was not the Knight.

She’d gotten out.

She didn’t do magic. She didn’t do cosmic.

London streets were plenty for a lifetime.

Constable Hutchinson couldn’t figure out what was wrong with the burnt building.

She stood behind the caution tape, staring at the husk of it, trying to wrap her head around why it didn’t make sense. The fire hadn’t crossed the property line. The walls of the flats on either side weren’t even sooty. It was as if the flames had hit an invisible internal wall and just… stopped.

And then there was the water.

It had rained last night, but the runoff had flowed wrong—unnaturally. The nearest street drainage had backed up, flooding the walk in a stagnant, knee-deep brown puddle that reached all the way to the building’s front step. It didn’t track. There were dozens of places in Brixton that should’ve flooded first if the Effra Water Line was clogged.

But only this block was submerged.

Only this building.

Like the flood had been fingers reaching from the gutter. An impotent response to the fire.

It had been three years since Beryl last spoke to Barbara Gordon. Those last strained conversations, back when she was still trying to measure up to the impossible standards of Batman Incorporated still kept her up at night. She didn’t want back in.

But she needed a second opinion.

She snapped a photo and sent it to Oracle.

Barbara agreed it was an odd one. Definitely strange, but low priority. Like Beryl, Oracle had no idea where John Constantine lived. That was mostly his own fault. He’d hidden a single shitty London flat with more precision than he’d ever bothered applying to the actual interdimensional mansion he could sometimes be found at.

Barbara forwarded the photos to the JLD and moved on to the next puzzle.

Notes:

Sorry for the short update.

References

It's still Monday morning. Because of the time difference between Britain and Illinois, this chapter takes place before team Phantom stole the Speeder and entered the ghost zone.

Tynt Meadow is an English Trappist beer that is best served slightly chilled but not iced.

Brittan has a voluntary disability card system so you can show official documentation without explaining what your specific disability is to strangers. There's optional color coded lanyards for holding the card.

The bartender is Harry Bailey. In addition to not having a childhood Harry frequently forgets important details, like the location of his keys and the fact that he was responsible for Canterbury Tales. My fanon is that at some point a modern doctor gave him a "young onset dementia" diagnosis and despite not being young and being pretty sure he's always been like this, he just went with it.

I'm not going to explain anything else. I'm sorry, it's going to be a long time before you get more answers about him or Gemmas necklace.

I want you to be intrigued and confused.

Chapter 29: Time Out

Summary:

In which Clockwork has a few things to say on the subject of John Constantine

The scariest thing about time travel is that anyone can do it.

John had told Sam and Danny that he avoided time travel, but he hadn’t given them the context . It wasn’t a personal quirk—it was a deliberate, daily act of resistance. Because time travel was easy . Easier than spatial travel by a damn sight. Much easier than lining up ambient energy, coincidences, and luck just to slip a few hundred miles sideways.

Time wasn’t a line. It was a puddle. Step wrong in a spot soaked with old emotion—an old battlefield, a riot site, a place layered in grief—and you might just fall into another century. It didn’t even need to be a battle. One dark alley stacked atop another would do the trick. London was full of those places. People got little flashes of the past all the time. Swore up and down they’d turned a corner into the 1960s or the 1880s or something equally romantic. Just another bloody synchronicity.

He was in his twenties when a friend of his rode a bike over a hill and straight into the 1600s. He’d come back as a ghost seventeen years later. Eaten alive by the time dilation. Full Rumpelstiltskin dream-time nonsense.

Easy.

You just had to be a desperate idiot to try it on purpose.

Clockwork said Time Out—

And wasn’t that cheesy? Like they were unruly children. 

It’s amazing what you can prepare for with just a bit of warning. And Danny had given him plenty of warning. 

The thing was, Constantine knew a spell for this. It was old—well, old-ish —as far as time magic went. 60 AD or so, a druid priest figured out how to scatter time into droplets and live between them. Constantine knew the spell, but he wasn’t daft enough to use it himself.

Not that he hadn’t found uses for it.

Once, he got rid of a gentrifying yuppie landlord by teaching him the trick to fractional picosecond stock trading. Bastard burned out his own heart chasing the tiniest glimpse of the future. Not murder if it's self-inflicted he reasoned. John had also known literal demons he cared more about than that guy. The fucker had tried to evict him from the Brixton flat while he was away on his honeymoon.

Away. 

As far as Constantine was concerned, landlords weren’t people. What he'd done was as good as a death sentence. If the bloke had been smarter and more magically inclined, he’d have realized all of those particular moments in 2011 were already fully occupied by the next generation of time-displaced monster. If he'd stuck around, he'd have been killed by the man who killed the druid priest:

Zoom. The Reverse-Flash.

Some concerning questions wiggled past his mental barrier as he thought about the incident. Had he really killed the landlord over the flat or had it been the way he spoke to 'Piffy? Had his fuse been that short for that long? It wasn't murder. It wasn't. But how many times had he done something like that in the last 15 years?

John shook himself. No time for this train of thought.

No, actually. He had time. That was the problem.

He’d used a sliver of the druid’s spell to follow the time ghost between moments. He wasn’t about to overclock his body by trying to move, but right now his  perception was running fast enough to verge on oracular. He was in real danger of burning out his brain.

But this was important.

He could see. He could listen. He could try to understand what this so-called time ghost was doing—how the hell he was moving squishy mortal teens in and out of the space between moments without turning them into soup.

He could spare a few stray thoughts to mentally grumble about the absolute hypocrisy of Speedsters being mystically insulated to pull off this one precious act of time manipulation while still not believing in magic.

John Constantine listened.

---

 

Clockwork said, ‘Time Out,’ and Danny could’ve melted with relief. Today felt like everything was taking forever and also moving too fast. The time medallion around his neck was a familiar weight. Time stopped—and Danny finally felt like he could breathe again.

Everything would be fine. Clockwork was here.

Except—

Danny turned slightly. He was the only one still moving. Sam, Jazz, Tucker, John, Red Robin… even Pandora was frozen, stiff as the statuary lining the island’s causeway.

He was alone with the elderly ghost of time.

He didn’t want to be alone. Not ever. It was silly. He wasn’t alone. Clockwork was here. Clockwork was a friend. He was safe.

So why did his shoulders tense?

Why couldn't he relax?

As comfort fled, the greeting he’d meant to say died in his throat, replaced with something else. Something sharp and rude and accusing—words hiding a fear that had been festering for months.

“Where have you been!” Danny demanded.

“Danny—” Clockwork began, soft as the tick of a winding watch.

“I thought you couldn’t interfere! Couldn’t act. Couldn’t care!” Danny snapped. “But nooo, the moment someone asks a real question, you show up to interrupt! The GIW was— You know what the GIW was. That’s the messed-up part.”

His voice cracked.

“The whole time… I was in a cage. And I knew you were watching.”

Danny’s hands curled into fists. “Was it all just some fucked up test? Something ‘necessary’? Something I— something I— something I deserved ?”

“Daniel—”

“ Don’t fucking call me that!”

Clockwork shifted and his unwrinkled gaze was glistening with an emotion Danny couldn't place.

“It was a test,” he said finally. “A test you passed.”

Danny scoffed.

“You worked together with your enemies,” Clockwork continued. “Because it was more important that they were people in peril than any pain they might have caused you. You negotiated. Inspired. Led. And ultimately, you saved them.”

Clockwork moved forward, eyes still gleaming.

“When freedom was in your grasp, you turned back for more. You wouldn't leave until everyone was safe. You are everything I ever hoped you could be.”

“Me?” Danny laughed bitterly. “I’m the best version of myself?”

He shook his head. “I’m nothing .”

“No. You are the chosen King of the Infinite Realms.”

Danny exhaled sharply through his nose, then seemed to fold inward, curling around the ache in his chest. He finally recognized that feverish look in Clockwork's eyes. He'd seen it on his parents. Seen it on Vlad and Valerie and most of the ghosts too.

Not love. Fanaticism.

Clockwork was inarguably the strongest being he'd ever met. Danny knew better than most how pointless it was to argue with Obsession. Being on the receiving end of that gaze was terrifying .

“Okay,” he whispered.

Clockwork’s expression shifted—something almost tender. “Danny?”

“I said okay.” His voice was hoarse. “Okay, I’m the king of the Infinite Whatever. Okay. Now what? What do you need?”

“We need you. Your protection. We need someone to stand between the living and the dead and make the right choice.” Clockwork’s eyes still gleamed with childlike devotion. “You’re already what the ghosts need. We just need you to keep being yourself.”

Danny huffed. “John doesn’t even think you’re ghosts at all.”

Clockwork tilted his head. “Semantics.”

Danny raised a brow. “Seems like kind of an important detail to brush off.”

“You’re going to listen to a Constantine? Really, Danny?” Clockwork asked, still shifting fluidly through his forms. The man sounded offended.

Danny hesitated. “He seems all right.”

“He’s dangerous,” Clockwork was old and his words carried the weight of experience. “Even when he’s not trying to be. Especially when he’s not trying to be. The whole lineage—but him , in particular.”

“You know him?”

“He has walked in time." Clockwork, was a strong man in his prime, crackling with energy as he suddenly raised his resonant voice, "His negligence has doomed entire timelines—” 

“You’re angry,” Danny observed quietly, the shift in the ghost's mood when discussing the wizard was sudden and sharp. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you angry.”

“You wouldn’t understand,” Clockwork replied, voice tight. “The world can not afford the kinds of mistakes this man makes. The things he’s done to my family—”

“I didn’t know you had a family,” Danny interjected.

Clockwork stilled. Somewhere in the distance, a magical keyboard clacked in counterpoint to the silence between them. The ghost wanted to answer but the amount of time he had been avoiding the topic was so long it had lost meaning. When he spoke again, Clockwork was a child; small, petulant, and hurt.

The words were quieter and far more honest than anything else he'd shared before. “He killed my father.”

Danny blinked in shock. “I thought you were—”

“Ancient and Neverborn?”

“Yeah.”

“I am. I was also born very recently," Clockwork admitted. For just a moment he was a blue-skinned teen approximately Danny's own age and build. A shape Danny had never seen before. It was there and gone again in the space of a breath. "I came to the Ghost Zone on my first day, and I’ve been here for all the time before and all the time ever since. Time is only linear if you let it be.”

“You avoided the question. Ghosts, the ghost zone, what is all this exactly? If you've been here so long-” Danny gestured at John's ridged form, “He called it the Bleed."

"An imprecise analogy, born from men who had only glimpsed a fraction of the Infinite Realms.” Clockwork was an elderly man again, lecturing and seemingly much more comfortable now that the topic wasn't himself. “If life is a printed story, the Bleed is the space at the edge of the page. The Infinite Realms are bigger than the Bleed. They include the spaces between the books, the shelves, and the library itself. The Ghost Zone is a fraction of that infinite, a haven built for outcasts and rebels"

“And the Ghosts?”

“Ghosts of themselves. Some are more metaphorical than others. It doesn't matter where they came from. I brought them together. They are here now in this space. We are building a better place.”

 

---

From his frozen vantage point, John Constantine finally felt like he understood part of the puzzle.

Spaces. Space and time. The time ghost’s time worked differently because his space worked differently. This wasn’t like the druid’s trick of stretching time thin. This wasn’t diluted time. It was a pocket outside time entirely.

Time Out.

Huh. Maybe not so cheesy after all. 

John was teetering on the edge of the stopped time, using his spell to peer in. He couldn't make a pocket like this himself, but it didn't look too hard to use one that was already established.

He needed to be sure.

Names had power. He had learned that the hard way—summoning without one to save Astra, fumbling everything, and losing her for 15 long years.

If he could find the right name, he could bind anything.

He suspected he already knew this one.

‘He killed my father’. John hated how little that narrowed it down. A child cast into the Bleed was a much shorter list.

Constantine looked at Danny wearing Clockwork’s medallion like a dog tag and thought of Abel. Round and timid, kind, stuttering Abel— brave enough to willingly die a painful death every day for eternity on the off chance it might occasionally make his brother happy. A man who could forgive anything so long as it was being done to him and no one else.

That’s what the House of Secrets wanted. That's what the ghosts wanted. That’s what Danny was. Not just a leader.

A martyr.

John had had enough self-sacrificing idiots to last a lifetime. Enough. He was outmatched in a test of power, but he rarely fought with power anyway. This was a job for words.

He mentally stood at the edge of the time-isolated pocket space he didn’t fully understand. It was almost shocking how much easier it was to break stuff than build it.

He gave the beautifully crafted temporal masterwork sharp mental kick at just the right angle and it crumbled like dried mud.

“Don’t listen to him, Danny,” he said as he felt the 'present' snap into place around him. “This asshole hijacked the death energy from the multiversal cosmic wheel after I killed the last thing leaching off of it. Nice loophole for harvesting power but I’ve seen this play before.”

The sky started swirling green again and the other members of their group were clearly trying to sort out both John's non-sequitur and Danny's apparent movement several meters to the left. “What?” Tim asked.

Tucker leaned over and whispered “Time stop, you get used to it. The blue guy is Clockwork”

John patted down his coat, checking for the Fenton tech he'd been carrying since they left the world. “He wants a puppet king. Seems like everyone always does. Don’t fall for it. They’ll take anyone on the throne so long as he’s a mouthpiece. It’s the Lord of Blades all over again.”

Clockwork hovered, fuming without comment. 

“Danny?” Jazz looked concernedly between the wizard and the ghost. “Did someone offer you a throne?”

“You think you’re a god, don’t you?” John continued uninterrupted, stepping forward. “You made this world from unwanted and discarded multiversal trash and you think that makes you ‘good.’ But the thing about phenomenally cosmic beings is—they aren’t. Not really.”

He laughed bitterly.

“I’ve met creator gods of a hundred different human faiths. A few of the alien ones too. They were all equally lying bastards who hadn’t created a damn thing except the story that kept them in power. The story has weight, sure—but it’s the same stories people use on each other. Might makes right. Nationalism. Racism. Capitalism. The myth of economic virtue.”

“What's he doing” , Tim hissed.

John's voice rose. “Dragons sitting on hoards of power and faith. There are no ethical billionaires? There are no ethical gods . They are all petty, flawed, mortal people.”

“Making some excellent points”, Sam hissed back. 

Clockwork’s aura flickered dangerously.

“Even YHWH is an ass,” John continued. “Even the Endless die. Even Death makes mistakes. No one is above reproach, and I live to be reproachful.”

“Should we do something?” Tim asked.

John shifted his stance. “From the very first shadows cast around the very first campfire, there’s been me. Not the storyteller. Not the story. Not the gullible rube trying to feel safe.”

Tucker shrugged “You probably know him better than we do”

John grinned a smile like a sword. “I’m the Laughing Magician. I wield the deep, persistent power of the Heckler.”

Then he pointed at Clockwork. “You’re the master of all time? You fill every moment from beginning to end? Pull the other one. Nothing is Eternal. Your story is shite.”

The light around Clockwork crackled with barely contained rage. A child building up a tantrum: “You aren’t, though, are you? That mantle of power, the lineage Kon-Sten-Tyn? It belongs to your brother. It knows what you did to him. It knows you are weak. It fights back. It wants out. It prefers your niece.”

The smile on the wizard's face changed an almost imperceptible amount. This smile was a shield. “Yeah? Well, I fucked your mom.”

Danny fell the short distance he'd been floating and stumbled over his feet in shock.

Clockwork's eyes flickered and John had the sudden intuition that the man was checking.

When the ghost flinched, it gave the entire game away. He'd been startled by something he hadn't seen until he knew to look for it. John knew his hunch was right. He really had gotten this guy's dad killed and then fucked his mom.

Oops.

John’s grin widened. He'd also made a tasteless joke to a very awkward and very pregnant couple right before everything had gone off the rails.

'If it’s a boy, name him after me.'

Ok. Time to go big. It was a guess, but it was a good guess. If he could name it, he could bind it with the ancient power of overblown dramatic speeches, antiquated syntax, and a child's hurt feelings. 

He reached into his coat, pulled out the  Fenton Thermos, and held it like a relic.

“I name you,” he said, voice ringing across the space, “Clockwork, Master of Time.”

The kids all made aborted half-movements towards him as if to interrupt when they saw the thermos but didn't follow through. John moved with enough confidence that not one of them was sure enough to try to stop him from capturing their past ally. 

“I name you Jonathan Tallison. I name you, child of the angel Talli and the demon Chantinelle.”

The pull began—energy spiraling, light howling. Clockwork twisted in the current. Now that overt actions were happening, Red Robin griped an ecto infused Bo staff he'd taken from the Fenton armory and waited to see where he was needed.

“Cast from heaven. Cast from hell. Cast back into the Bleed where you were conceived by angels forsworn from murder.”

John stepped closer. Jazz helped Danny up off the ground as they both stared wide-eyed at the tableau. 

“Cease this endeavor against reality, and I might grant you your dearest wish. Reunion with the woman I have hidden against all who search. Reunion with the one who bears the marks of concealment I have carved into her soul.”

He raised the Thermos.

“Reunion with your mother—the succubus Chantinelle, Triskeles’ daughter. The demon who lusted for an angel who turned that lust into love. The assassin who slew the Triumvirate of Hell in your name.”

Light wrapped tighter, locking Clockwork in place.

“Leave this place,” John finished, “that I might bring you to her.”

And Clockwork vanished.

The island was still. John let his hand drop.

“And for what it’s worth,” he added quietly to the sealed lid of the Thermos, “I’m sorry. I failed you, kid. I failed your dad. I made a stupid mistake.”

His hand clenched around the cylinder.

“It might be too late, but I’m going to try to fix it.”

Pandora started to slowly clap as John shoved the infant god into his pocket next to the lighter, cigarettes, and spare spell components. 

Constantine craned his head up to address the giantess with the spear. “Sorry to have intruded, luv,” he said with an easy shrug. “We’ll just be going then.”

“You must go now,” Pandora explained. “You have very little time if you wish to avoid interference from the rest of the Council.”

“Wait, that’s it? We’re leaving? What happened?” Red Robin blinked, still trying to piece together what ectoplasm even was, based on the conversation from just seconds ago.

“You took a side. We will see if it was the right one. I have become less sure of my own place in the order as personal vendettas have begun to threaten our shared goal. If how we succeed is as important as victory then I stand on thin ground indeed.”

“And what do you want, Pandora?” Danny asked.

“Peace my lord. Peace and the security of the power I guard.” She surveyed the statuary. “If I must be on a side I would choose to be on yours.”

“There.” She pointed to a statue of a man in a wingsuit near where they stood. “Take that one with you as you go.”

---

 

Constantine looked at the island around them—Pandora’s mismatched Parthenon. His head ached. He didn’t want to be here anymore either.

Time. That was the thing. More precious than gold. That could work.

Maybe this wouldn’t even hurt too much.

“Ten years,” he intoned, his voice echoing with the same dramatic cadence he’d used before.

Sam turned toward him, confused by the change of topic. “What?”

“Ten years,” Constantine repeated. “That’s the difference between my twin and me. Same face, Same age. Same name. But he was always better at this. He never sacrificed anything or anyone. His friends all lived. He never bled. He was the best possible Laughing Magician. Beloved.”

John’s voice darkened. “But that bright future he built when given the chance? The world that kept spinning without me in it? It collapsed in 2015. I saw it.”

He didn’t look at anyone as he continued. “Clockwork was right. I walked against time, I sacrificed him, and his friends, and his family, and his values, and I bought us all ten years.”

He looked at the teens—children, really—and tried to picture the wreckage of the world they would have grown up in if he’d made a different choice.

“Ten years and counting.”

Then he closed his eyes and pictured light dancing on golden hair. 

He turned the key.

He smelled the phantom scent of blood in the ectoplasm laced air.

This time, it didn’t hurt at all.

“Come on, you lot,” he said, pointing up and to the right—toward a massive floating door indistinguishable from the hundred others that hung in the swirling green. “Back on the bus. This one’s mine.”

 

---

The House of Mystery was frustrated.

This story wasn’t very well built at all. The foundation was rickety, and the narrative was threatening some of its favorite people.

The path had looked so clear: the Caretakers would follow Gotham’s little agent back to its nest. Secrets would settle close to its new person. And Mystery would be there already—regally situated on the hillside, having anticipated each step along the way.

Now, though? Now it was being asked to move .

That ruined the air of supernatural precognition it had been hoping for. It didn’t want to be a taxi. It didn’t want to trail after Secret like a lost dog. It wanted to manufacture a reason to bump into the other House. Casual. Organic.

A meet-cute.

Leaving and coming back would reveal the sad truth.

The House was trying too hard.

Worst of all, the House of Secrets had helped. Had provided band-aids, soup, and advice.

Mystery didn’t like that at all.

Well— Mystery knew how to be a gracious host too. Had done it more often, with more people, for longer. If it had to be helpful, it would show off just how helpful it could be.

It hadn’t really considered trying to mend the Caretakers before—but now that the idea was out in the open, it knew exactly what to do. It wasn’t a storyteller, but it was pretty sure it knew how to feed a story back to its own person.

As the House of Mystery scooped up the small cast of characters it stretched itself out into new rooms. Rooms of a noticeably biographical nature.

The House of Mystery should have known the futility of keeping secrets from the House of Secrets. It just wasn’t done.

The other House was always going to know Mystery had come to Gotham out of loneliness. Just like it already knew about the most embarrassing secret of all.

The House of Secrets knew that in that dark, empty time between Caretakers, the House of Mystery had gone truly insane.

For a tiny window of time—hardly worth mentioning, and certainly not worth examining—Mystery hadn’t been a House at all.

It had twisted in on itself so far as to briefly become something very pathetic and disgusting. 

It had been a human. 

Neither House wanted to talk about it.

Notes:

My longest chapter. Finally. I've been sitting on the dramatic monolog in this chapter since February!!

References

Constantine has done the time travel thing a few times, usually around battlefields. These include but are not limited to:

"When Johnny Comes Marching Home" Hellblazer #5, the Resurrection Crusade (Tony Masters cult) successfully layered the Vietnam war on top of Liberty, Iowa in an attempt to bring MIA solders home. This was a bad idea.

"Finest Hour" Hellblazer #71, John joins an RFA piolet on his last mission during WW2

"Riding the Green Lanes" Hellblazer #91, John's friend Deanie disappeared in 1978 and died in 1642 during the English Civil War but his ghost eventually made it back to the present

"Undertow" Hellblazer #119, John visits a soft space that intersects the moment before tragedy, the time when you know you and everyone around you will die. This time/place/emotion includes the sinking of the Titanic, the Hindenburg, the Challenger, Mount Vesuvius, the Lusitania, and 'airline disasters in the near future'. This issue was published nearly four years before 9/11.

"Bloody Carnations" Hellblazer #274, John punched a punk rock version of himself in the face for being an asshole to Epiphany

"High-Frequency Man" Hellblazer #276, John disposed of his landlord by teaching him chronomancy

The space between moments described in High-Frequency Man is nearly identical to how Hunter Zolomon aka Zoom's power is described in The Flash (vol. 2) #197. Zolomon isn't Thawne. He is a different man with the same villain identity. This also isn't the slightest bit important to this story, I'm just always looking for more ways to strengthen the crossover connections.

I'm not sure if John has ever canonically met Vertigo Abel. In my story he did, probably sometime when he was just starting out, before Cain and Abel went missing.

Lord of Blades was in "Royal Blood" Hellblazer #54 this was an attempt to put a demon inside Prince Charles so Britain could have a more violent puppet-king. John stopped it.

Clockworks backstory is revealed!
He is the child of Chantinelle and Talli kidnapped by angels at the end of "Nativity Infernal" Hellblazer #60. After writing Hellblazer, Garth Ennis went on to write Preacher. The antagonist of that story is a half-angel half-demon infant entity named Genesis who is for legal reasons, narratively distinct from the half-angel half-demon infant previously created by the same writer. The precedent is that this particular mix of angel and demon lineage results in something that is basically a baby god.

Back to the twin stuff. Funny how 2015, the 'distant alternate future' where John met his brother in "The Hanged Man" Hellblazer #39 was 14 years in the future back in 1991 and is now 10 years in the past.

I've got ideas for how House of Mystery will try to "help" both Danny and Constantine, so let's do an informal poll: Which would you like to see first? What the House thinks John needs, or what the House thinks Danny needs? Let me know in the comments.

Squire is one of those teen heros that got written out of continuity for New 52 and never brought back. I'm still salty about it. Unless inspiration strikes this will probably be her only appearance in this fic.

Fanfiction writers often make a big deal about Tim running around trying to prove Bruce was lost in time but forget that while he was doing that, Dick tried to resurrect the fake corpse to disastrous effect.

Beryl is here instead of being tacked on a future chapter to tip me over 60k.

60k in six months. I'm floored 'yall. I'm severely dyslexic, like learned to read in my teens dyslexic. I never thought I could do something like this. Thank you for the love and support every step of the way.

Edit: It has been five months. 60k in five months doesn't have the same ring to it but apparently I also can't count.

Chapter 30: Other House

Summary:

In which Ivy-Mae Palace has a few things to say on the subject of John Constantine

Librarian Ivy-Mae Palace had followed MI5 Agent Georgina Snow so persistently they ended up sharing a hotel in Amity Park.

Agent Snow, for the life of her, couldn’t figure out how to shake the tenacious fairy princess without causing a full-blown international incident with Abaton.

Then there’d only been one room available.

Two beds, thank God. Two beds and a TV that Palace turned on immediately, much to Snow’s immense irritation.

That irritation waned slightly when the local news came up—footage from the mayoral announcement the day before. Midway through the commentary, Agent Snow let out a low, tired sigh as the camera panned across the crowd and caught the limp body of a man lying unconscious in the background, not far from where the Masters Blasters had scuffled with the ghostboy.

“My life was so much easier when he was cursed never to set foot on British soil again.”

The girl on the other bed raised an eyebrow. “You have to know that was never going to last.”

“Because he missed England?”

Palace wrinkled her nose, thoughtful. “That too. But mostly because England missed him.”

Snow gave the younger woman a sidelong glance. She couldn’t tell how literal Palace was being. With genius loci and conceptual avatars all over the place—and Abaton straddling the line between a mythical capital and a spiritual embassy—there were worse ideas than a country pining for a person.

The channel cut to commercial with a solemn tease: “The Ghost Boy Speaks—after these messages from our sponsors.”

Librarian Ivy-Mae Palace kept right on talking.

Georgina tried to tune her out, half-lost in jetlag and irritation, but the girl was still animated and even after a transatlantic flight she was still gushing about—

“—Lord Constantine—”

Wait.

“What did you say?”

“I said ‘the besieged troops at Krakow’?”

“Before that.”

“Lord Constantine led the besieged troops at Krakow?”

Georgina stared at her. She understood every individual word, but strung together they didn’t make any goddamn sense.

“Did… Did someone put John Constantine in charge of an army?”

Palace laughed—a fae sound, bright and tinkling like windchimes. “Of course not, silly. He was six-hundred-somethingth in the chain of command when the Cherish besieged Poland. But you know how war is… After the first few months, well—he was what was left. He was the leader of the last human fortification. They held out over a year after the food was gone by eating the nonhumans first. Did you not know this?”

“What war?”

“You—” Palace blinked. “You really don’t know? I thought that was why you hated him.”

“I don’t hate him, I just—”

“You just can’t stand him for entirely different reasons, unrelated to treason?"

Georgina was getting frustrated. Constantine wasn't humanity's last hope. He was the asshole punk musician and two-bit sorcerer who ran off with her girlfriend back in the 70s. 

"Okay then, why should I hate John Constantine? It sounds like we won.”

“You assume. You didn't win anything. We did.”

“Excuse me?”

“My people.” Ivy-Mae’s voice sharpened. “Between the fractured human coalition, demonic incursions, and the fairy courts, Constantine knew none of us would come together in time to face the Hunter. So he picked a side, the strongest one, and damned the rest.”

“He picked you.”

“Fairy,” Ivy-Mae corrected. “After a lifetime on the side of humanity and fifteen months leading the last of your forces he changed sides. Killed his remaining allies inside the siege walls just to buy himself a foothold. That was the turning point. Humanity… ceased to exist last February.”

Georgia looked at her flatly. “I feel like I would’ve noticed ceasing to exist.”

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” Palace shrugged.

“My brother thinks Constantine doesn’t remember it either. Something’s off in the Dreaming. Whole timelines are misaligned. A version of the Justice League showed up for the final push— but by that point, causality was leaking. Loopholes everywhere. Constantine probably slipped through one himself. As far as the courts can tell, he thinks the War was a string of disconnected skirmishes that lasted weeks. Not years.”

Georgina crossed her arms. “So… he’s your favorite war hero?”

“No,” Ivy-Mae said with a soft, strange smile. “He’s my favorite traitor.”

“And you’re a fan?”

“Oh, very much so. He's very good at it. I wouldn’t have even a fraction of the power I carry if he hadn’t meddled in my parents’ affairs.” She looked almost wistful, “I know what he is. He was the Hunter’s mentor. My brother’s too. I pity the next child foolish enough to trust John Constantine as an advisor. We barely survived him. Hunter… had it worse.”

Her tone turned grave.

“He was tricked. Locked inside a prison pocket-realm of his own making—no magick, no war, no dreams, no gods. I would rather visit hell. Constantine locked him in and tossed the key. Thought it was permanent. Thought it was a solution.”

Georgina felt cold. “It didn’t work?”

“No. It was a terrible plan.” Ivy-Mae leaned back. “But it bought us time. Some entities can’t be contained and even the Endless aren't permanent. In the end, we stopped the Hunter the only way you ever stop a god.”

“How?”

“By using their own story against them.”

The girl with violet hair stared at the TV, now flickering into a low-budget ad for ghost insurance. She looked like nothing more than a college student lost in thought.

“I do hope Constantine’s learned something,” she murmured, “for the next time he tries to seal an aspect of reality in a box and sneak away with it in his coat pocket.”

---

 

John Constantine had just sealed an aspect of reality in a box and was sneaking away with it in his coat pocket.

He wasn’t particularly worried about it.

Like any proper thief, he sauntered toward the exit without so much as a glance back.

No hurry.

No panic.

He couldn’t remember if he’d ever done anything like this before—but that didn’t necessarily mean he hadn’t.

What did concern him, a little, was the way Danny kept looking at him. Like he had hung the stars. Like crashing Clockwork’s 'join me and we shall rule together' monologue had been the first time an adult had ever stepped in and protected him. 

That kind of blind trust was always a bad sign. It gave him power and he knew from experience that he couldn't trust himself with it.

The problem with loyal self-sacrificing idiots was how easy it was to sacrifice them. All well and good for them. They were dead. He was the one who had to keep living with it.

It made him quietly grateful that Red Robin had decided to tag along.

Tim Drake had an excellent track record of minimizing bystander casualties and keeping the grown-ups around him from detonating in spectacular fashion.

John suspected Danny was going to need that. Badly.

---

 

Jasmine Fenton flew the Specter Speeder through a green wooden door large enough for a stable, a barn, or a small aircraft hangar. She was immediately grateful the craft had been designed by her mother with the assumption that Jack Fenton would be piloting it.

The space beyond the door had a high concrete ceiling and a wide, open floor broken only by evenly spaced structural pillars. The statue in the back made steering tricky—the thing was heavy enough to throw the center of gravity off entirely.

Like the Fenton family ghost assault vehicle, the Specter Speeder had been overbuilt to a degree that bordered on reckless. Jazz figured she could probably clip a pillar, pinball wildly between the floor and ceiling, and walk away with nothing more than cosmetic damage. Maddy Fenton knew her husband.

At least, that’s what Jazz kept telling herself as she slowed to a crawl and carefully navigated what she only now realized was a parking garage.

She had questions. So many questions.

The Bleed.

The ghosts.

The crown.

The bottled god they were all just... not talking about.

Behind her, Sam Manson asked one question that hadn’t even occurred to her:

“Who’s Kua L’ipa?”

“A monster,” John replied smoothly. “One of the guardians of the Garden of Eden. Supernatural scapegoat for the Oransay Contingent. A cult framed framed the big scary monster and I bought it.”

“What happened?”

“I threw my city at it.”

“You killed it?” Sam asked, wide-eyed.

“No. Thing shrugged it off. I hit him head-on with the entire city of London and it just—bounced. Didn’t even flinch. Map didn’t talk to me for the better part of a decade after. Said I came too close to burning down London. I don’t know what had his tail in a knot. London burns itself down every century or two without any help. Clears out the rot. Like it remembers being a forest or something.”

John sighed.

“Either way, he’s another monster I’d rather not meet again. He had one job. Can’t imagine he’s forgiven me for screwing with it.”

Jazz had spotted what looked like an elevator near the back of the garage. They were beginning to pass parked vehicles now—

They passed what appeared to be a hearse but was in fact a heavily modified Jaguar.

There was also a horse and buggy, a giant snail, a very confused looking tractor—

—and, of course, one heavily modified Jaguar which didn't look anything like a hearse because it was in fact a giant cat curled in a ball, apparently asleep.

“Are you supposed to be feeding that?” Danny asked, peering at the cat as they passed. “Is that part of the whole caretaker gig?”

“I hope not,” John muttered. “If I’m supposed to be feeding anything in this place anything other than story— I’ve been gone long enough the sea monster has probably up and died.”

---

 

They parked and the six of them squeezed into the elevator, rotating awkwardly to make space. The control panel was cluttered with buttons, their labels ranging from Widow’s Walk at the top to Labyrinth at the bottom. A sheet of paper rested in a display sleeve beside them:

 

DO YOU DARE ENTER THE HOUSE OF MYSTERY?

17/11/25

 

“Wow. House time is weird,” Danny murmured. “That’s like a whole extra five months added to the year.”

“Danny,” Jazz groaned, pure sisterly exasperation in her voice.

“It’s the 17th of November.” John clarified with just a hint of derision.

“Oh. Oh! Right. British.” Danny perked up, then leaned toward the buttons again.

In the space of a breath, the labels had changed. The top one now read Observatory instead of Widows Walk.

He jabbed at it excitedly. “What time do you think it is? Like, physically?”

“That depends entirely on where we are, doesn’t it?” John mused.

“Are we anywhere?” Sam asked. “The last House didn’t seem to want to do windows.”

“We’ve only experienced about six hours of elapsed time since entering the Ghost Zone,” Tucker added, checking his phone. “Still daylight, if we’re anywhere in the Americas.”

Danny frowned but pressed the button twice more, just in case.

As they rose, each floor’s corresponding button lit up, then dimmed again as it passed:

Library.

Garden.

Kitchen.

Lounge.

Archive.

Quarters.

Tim, calm and casual, reached out and pressed the button labeled Exhibit Hall just before they reached it. Danny shot him a wounded look.

“It’s on the way,” Tim said, unapologetic. “We can peek in before going to the roof. I just want to see what’s showing.”

The doors opened with a soft chime onto a brightly lit museum floor. A polished display stood front and center, declaring in glossy serif lettering:

 

HOUSE OF MYSTERY PRESENTS:

HELLBLAZER – AN INTERACTIVE EXHIBIT

 

Constantine slammed the door close button without hesitation and half-turned, bracing himself between the doors. He made direct eye contact with the young vigilante.

“Let’s see what Danny’s so excited about first, yeah?”

The elevator didn’t move.

Danny peeked under John’s arm curiously. “My thing can wait. Tucker’s right—it’s probably not even dark yet. I wanna see.”

Jazz caught the look in Constantine’s eyes and frowned. She stepped forward, peering past his shoulder.

“The House is alive, right? It built this. So you’re going to end up going in there eventually. Would you rather go in alone?”

John didn’t answer.

Didn’t nod. Didn’t sigh. Didn’t admit anything.

But after a beat, he let his arm drop.

 

And without ever confirming his doubts aloud, he stepped aside and let the kids walk into a space dedicated entirely to his past.

 

Notes:

Hoo boy.

References

I just picked up "Books of Magic: Life in Wartime" from a used book bin, and I am *so* here for it. John Constantine is still making the same hard and necessary choices he's always known for—but in a war setting, those choices shift from “bad friend” territory to “full-blown war criminal.”

This title was the last thing published before the DC Black Label soft reboot and probably not part of main continuity. Since Si Spencer’s story is about a magical war *alongside* Tim Hunter, and Si Spurrier’s new Hellblazer series kicks off with a magical war *against* Tim Hunter, I assumed they were telling the same story. Turns out... not only was I wrong, but British Hellblazer writer Si Spencer and British Hellblazer writer Si Spurrier are not the same person. Oops.

Canonically, in Life in Wartime, Constantine ends up being a triple (quadruple?) agent who was secretly on Tim Hunter’s side the whole time. By the power of fanfic, I am retconning this to stitch the two stories together—because come on, I want to play with the war crimes!

In this chapter, Ivy mentions that even the Endless aren’t permanent. Dream died within her lifetime, and I think a lot of immortal beings are probably still reeling from the events of Sandman. She also refers to Tim as “The Hunter,” as he was being worshipped by both human and fae factions at the start of war.

The rest of this chapter is just a transition to the exhibit hall. Sorry to anyone hoping to see Danny’s thing first—I was struggling with how people were moving around the House. Given the choice, Constantine definitely wouldn’t invite anyone else along... but he also secretly doesn’t want to be alone.

Chapter 31: On Display

Summary:

In which the House of Mystery has a few things to say on the subject of John Constantine

Notes:

This is one of those chapters that lives rent free in my mind. The end note has reached the character limit. Please ask me questions in the comments.

All wizards are hoarders.

All wizards are hoarders, but this wizard had made a point of cleaning house every few decades.

He’d burned the contents of the Streatham lock-up in ’04. Lost it all again when Mister E attacked the shed in New York in ’14. Torched it once more when he circled back to the stash in Liverpool in ’23.

Except the House must’ve slipped between the flames. Scooped up a few choice things while he wasn’t looking.

It was a Museum.

A museum where every single glittering, glass-encased display was a monument to him.

That was the charred skull of the Vampire King.

That was an old iron box that used to be the Holy Grail.

That was the original Grimoriam Veta.

Harpy feathers from the first time Gemma had tried to kill him.

The old shoebox he'd used to store the heart of an angel.

The shipping label from the second time Gemma had tried to kill him.

A Roman centurion’s helmet he didn’t even recognize.

The syringe from the third time Gemma had tried to kill him.

A tiny moonblade that whispered lies in a Southern accent.

A blue suit jacket and white gloves.

The First of the Fallen’s old business card.

An angelic message two centuries out of date.

“This is… all junk,” John whispered into the space.

“Yeah,” Tim admitted. “Didn’t want to be the one to say it. I was expecting something educational. This is more like… an art gallery. Or a trophy room.”

Jazz was still trying to make sense of the chaos. “There’s no discernible timeline and the labels are useless.” She gestured to a battered, chewed-up pencil encased like it was a relic of a lost civilization. The label read simply:

Pencil, 1964

“Why?” she asked. “Why is there a pencil? Is it magic? Is it important? Is it—what? Found-object installation art?”

“Remember what I said back in Amity about the danger of something for nothing?” John asked. “Never mind, you weren’t there for that part. Point is—I can make real, persistent objects but I choose not to most of the time because the power has to come from somewhere and there's always a price. Magic’s a shell game. You move energy around and play with misdirection and hope reality doesn't notice. It took a me while to figure out how to slip the pieces around and play it right.

He stepped closer to the case.

“That’s just a pencil. But it’s my pencil. Not an illusion. Not sleight of hand. Not some glittery force construct that falls apart when you stop believing in it. Solid. Normal. Durable after 60 years. That's the kind of magic some people would kill for and I just— probably forgot to bring one to class one day. Made that instead.”

He tapped the glass. “I made a ton of them when I was a kid. One of my first spells. One of the only spells I ever taught someone else. They come pre-chewed. Being a bit rubbish is part of the object’s identity.”

He squinted at it, then shrugged. “No idea what I was thinking. It's both easier and safer to steal a pencil from a person then it is to bend causality and steal one from the universe. Only an idiot or a massive egotist would be so eager to bugger reality for a half-chewed No. 2.”

“Makes sense to me,” Jazz reasoned. “I hate the feeling of not having a pencil.”

“Okay, but what about this one?” Sam pointed to a plain wooden box:

Angelic Message, 1811

"How is an angelic message junk?”

“It’s a message between angels,” John replied, not bothering to look. “Most angels are soldiers. The useful angelic messages are troop movements, not war propaganda. It's not about peace or hope or love for the masses. That was counterintelligence—valuable to the right buyer, but it already had a short shelf life when I got my hands on it. It's trash because it's out of date.”

He wandered off, deeper into the exhibit, only half listening as the kids chattered behind him.

“Why is the worst FentonWorks invention here?” Tucker asked.

“Fenton Anti-Creep Stick?” Tim read the label on the open bucket of sports gear next to a gold-leaf-covered book titled Gospel of Constantine. Half a dozen tapered aluminum rods were sticking up in easy reach. “Are these just… baseball bats labeled Fenton?”

“Yes,” Jazz admitted, defeated. “They’re not MLB regulation, but basically.”

“It’s got some heft to it,” Tim said, weighing one in his hands. “What’s it do?”

“You swing it,” Danny explained, sounding like he wanted to melt into the floor. “It wrecks stuff. The stickers peel off if you don’t want to look at my dad’s face.”

John Constantine had stopped moving. The discussion of the merits of custom weighted bludgeoning weapons faded out behind him. He stood before a display case containing an old wooden clock. The dissociation hit him like a wave. The light dimmed and he wasn't in the exhibit hall anymore.

All that was left was the clock.

Gaz’s mum’s old mantelpiece clock.

The Rasputin Clock, 1978

It should be in an LAPD evidence locker. He’d done it up as a fake Russian artifact in the ‘70s —tacky foil, runes, pseudo-occult nonsense—and sold it to a sad, rich kid for a ludicrous amount of money. That kid had grown into a monster. A man who had never forgotten. Never forgiven.

Call me 'SW' Stanley Manor.

For someone who could have anything his entire life, being cheated just once had been the ultimate betrayal.

This clock was the reason John had been framed for murder.

The reason he’d gone to prison the first time.

The reason the Fermin brothers had hunted him down after he'd been released.

The reason Lucky Fermin's ghost had stood by the wall of chains, dribbling brain matter and watching their misplaced revenge.

The reason he’d spent those awful weeks in LA just letting himself be used afterwards.

That whole twisted relationship with Turro.

That whole fucked up relationship with Manor.

Turro’s death.

His own murder-suicide.

There was a roaring in his ears. It had all started with this fucking clock.

He could smell sulfur. Could smell his own burning meat. Could feel it—skin peeling, insides bubbling.

Extra Crispy

The air snapped with static.

He shrugged his jacket down to one side, balled the sleeve around his fist, and swung. He smashed the glass of the display box into tinkling shards. Slivers of glass embedded in the coat. He didn’t stop. The next hit struck the clock itself—wood splintered, brass springs twanged. He shoved it off the pedestal. Stomped on it, again and again, then punted what was left across the room and sent it flying into another display.

It felt good.

Like when he’d snapped his fingers and killed the eldest Fermin — killed his dog, killed his porn studio, killed his whole bloody town.

He looked out across the exhibit— So clean. So precise. Carefully curated, beautifully lit. 

A wild, manic giggle bubbled up from his chest. It escaped his mouth and echoed across the hall.

“Uhh… John?”

A gentle hand touched his elbow, and he nearly jumped out of his skin.

Danny stood there, wide-eyed with concern.

“It’s an interactive exhibit,” he explained around a snicker. John took a Fenton Anti-Creep Stick from Danny's hands and slung it over his shoulder, sizing up the room with a glint in his eye.

He looked back and forth between the books, the bones, the wreckage of some of the worst moments of his life.

And then—slowly—a devilish grin curled across his face.

“It’s not a museum at all,” he laughed.

“What is it, then?” Sam asked warily.

“This?” He tilted his head, addressing the space above them. “This is the nicest thing anyone’s done for me in a long time,” he shouted at the rafters. Then he hefted the bat, turned back to the group, eyes wild.

“It’s a rage room.”

He swung the bat into the air like a manic conductor—

“Come on, team. Let’s wreck stuff.”

---

 

It took a bit more encouragement, but they did.

Five young adults and a wizard, dismantling decades of trauma and bad decisions with bats, boots, and brute force. At some point, the House kindly provided a bass-heavy soundtrack for the event.

Tucker, by far the least physically fit of the bunch, was sweaty, tired, and wheezing before an hour was out. For all that, he was still grinning as he reached toward an acetylene torch tucked beside a stuffed alligator. 

“Don’t touch that one!” Constantine was suddenly at his shoulder.

“It’s cursed?” Tucker guessed, already pulling his hand back.

“That too. But mostly it’s stupid. If you touch the Dogwelder, you become the Dogwelder.”

“…Dogwelder?”

“It’s technically a cosmic mantle of power,” John explained. “Existentially terrifying. Also very, very dumb. The torch gives you the overwhelming compulsion to weld dogs to people’s faces to the exclusion of all other thoughts and activities. Along with the mystical ability to, you know—" he gave a frustrated little wave, "weld dogs to faces.”

“Why do you have it?” Tucker asked puzzled. It looked like machinery and some part of him wanted to take it apart. That urge was actually stronger now that he knew it was a cursed magical item.

John sighed. “It was a low point. Cosmic team-up bullshit. We saved the galaxy, but I wasn’t—”

He trailed off, searching for the right words. The sounds of distant crashing from the other members of the group continued to echo off the walls.

“You ever have days when you feel sort of… thin and spread out? Tolkien had that metaphor with the buttered toast. That feeling. I was going through the motions, but everything felt off. Empty. Like the universe had gone mad and I was becoming a caricature of myself just to get through the day. Hoverboards. Spaceships. Bloody Dogwelder.”

He shook his head.

“This guy—he could make a dead dog talk by sticking his hand up its arse. I kid you not. Not ventriloquism. Magical corpse-puppetry. He actually had to. Completely mute without the dead dog to talk through. It was impressive magic. Also insane. He died heroically, saving us all, and fuck me if that wasn't as good as an intervention to get myself back to earth and onto some firm fucking ground.”

He gestured at the torch. “As bad as my life has been? This was rock bottom.”

He didn't mention he'd been wearing a space helmet full of his own vomit and bleeding from the asshole and during Dogwelders tragic spacewalk to do something to the Sirius B star system.

The sexual assault was the real rock bottom.

It wasn't worth mentioning how that was the exact moment he'd decided not to step foot on another spaceship for as long as he lived. There was a spaceship parked in the basement demonstrating how futile that goal had been.

Ding.

Back where they had come in the elevator doors opened. John glanced from it to the flushed, exhausted young man in front of him, then back again.

There were so many displays left.

“You lot go ahead,” he said, raising his voice slightly so the rest could hear. “Anyone who wants to. I didn’t realize some of this would be dangerous. Go on—get some food, make yourselves at home.”

He raked a hand through his hair, sheepish. “I’m going to stay here a while and, uh… keep working through some stuff. You know where to find me.”

As his back was turned, Jazz Fenton crouched, picked up the gold-encrusted Gospel of Constantine from where it had landed in the chaos, and slipped it under her shirt. She didn't approve of violence against books.

One by one, the kids drifted out. They picked their way through the wreckage of memory and ego, broken glass and cracked shelves, until they joined Tucker at the elevator.

The doors closed. The House swallowed them.

Behind, the Dumpty Humpty song 'I want to be trapped in a fire hazard' by Syder Eldridge started playing.

Glass shattered.

 

The wizard kept swinging.

Notes:

Hold on. This is going to be gratuitous. I've been adding items to this room for the last three months and it's a lot:

References

• Streatham in ’04, "R.S.V.P. Part 2 of 2", Hellblazer #215. Mike Carey ended his 3-year run with Constantine quitting magic entirely.
• New York in ’14, "Game Over", Constantine #7.
• Liverpool in ’23, I made this one up because it sounds better if he's done it thrice. Put it at the start of the Black Label run.
• Skull of the Vampire King: 1993, "Rough Trade", Hellblazer #69.
• The Holy Grail: 1997, "Last Man Standing, Part Three: Human Punk", Hellblazer #112.
• Grimorium Veta, Damn it. I lost track of this one in my notes. It's a real-world magic book referenced in Hellblazer.
• Harpy feathers: 2011, "Phantom Pains, Part Four: Gemma's Story", Hellblazer #280.
• Old shoebox: 1994, "Rake at the Gates of Hell, Part 3", Hellblazer #80. Gabriel was an ass, but he didn't deserve this. Tilda Swinton was the best casting choice possible for him.
• Shipping label: 2011, "The Devil's Trenchcoat, Part One: The Stench That Lingers", Hellblazer #283. Bit dramatic to call selling his coat on eBay a murder attempt, but it did cause a mass casualty event and almost killed him.
• Roman centurion’s helmet: 20??, "Have You Seen the Stars Tonight?", Books of Magick: Life During Wartime #1. Lord Constantine's helm.
• The syringe: 2012, "Death and Cigarettes Pt. 3", Hellblazer #300. A torment spell tailored specifically to John's magical signature. One dose was supposedly enough to kill a man—so they brewed three to kill Demon Constantine. Instead, Gemma gave only two to the Demon Constantine and saved one for her uncle. This is how the original series ends.
• Moonblade: 2014, "Spot the Hustle", Constantine #8. That's the soul of Mister E trapped in a sword. He is very bored. The size of a Moonblade corresponds to the phase of the moon.
• A Blue Suit: 1985, "Growth Patterns", Swamp Thing #37. John’s original outfit from his first appearance and what he wore through the rest of the ’80s.
• First of the Fallen’s old business card: 1998, "Up the Down Staircase", Hellblazer #124. First of the Fallen had business cards printed just so John could sell his soul again in the near future. John lasted three issues before calling the number.
• An angelic message: "R.S.V.P. Part 1 of 2", Hellblazer #214? I think? I honestly lost track of this one too.
• Pencil: 1964, The Mystery of the Meanest Teacher: A Johnny Constantine Graphic Novel. Events of this book now take place at Merchant Taylors’ School in Liverpool in 1964. Because I say so. Pay no attention to the loving parents in Act 1.
• Fenton Anti-Creep Stick, "13", Danny Phantom Season 1.
• Gospel of Constantine: 2008, "Mortification of the Flesh", Hellblazer #243. Chantenelle and Constantine teamed up to pull a heist on the Vatican.
• The Rasputin Clock: 1978, "Lapdogs and Englishmen", Hellblazer #162.
• "SW" Stanley Manor. The overarching villain of Hellblazer #146–174. He's an evil Batman deconstruction literally named "Stately Wayne Manor" because Brian Azzarello has a weird sense of humor. The entire dissociative episode here comes from these 28 issues, but the story was told nonlinearly as John slowly learned more about the conspiracy shaping this period of his life. I was going to reference each issue individually, but I got frustrated. Might add it later. Return of the "CPTSD" "Past Forced Bestiality" and "Canon Typical No-Con" tags.
• Stuffed alligator: 1989, "Larger Than Life" Hellblazer #23. Jerry O’Flynn’s junk is here to represent the start of the Family Man arc.
• Dogwelder: 2016, "Heckblazer", Sixpack & Dogwelder: Hard-Travelin’ Heroz #1–8. A comedy title by former Hellblazer writer Garth Ennis. This story is horrifying if you take it even the slightest bit seriously. John Constantine is a member of the second Section 8 team and appears as a caricature —mostly as a commentary on the choices DC editorial was making at the time. The team includes Bueno Excellente, a man whose stated "superpower" is sexual assault. He walked in on Constantine screwing his wife, an ambulatory digestive system named Guts. Trying to determine just how much SA and grey consent happened to this character, this wins rock bottom.
• Syder Eldridge: The green-haired Dumpty Humpty member who went to Hell is the son of Rich Eldridge, the titular Last Man Standing from "Last Man Standing". More on them later.

Special thanks to Nenanen for showing me how to hide parts of my author note.

Chapter 32: Strange Horizons

Summary:

In which Red Robin has a few things to say on the subject of The House of Mystery

Gemma Constantine-Masters—smelly, confused, frustrated, midlife-crisis-experiencing, cambion-rescuing, harpy-summoning niece of John Constantine— had somehow negotiated shower and a room for the night in the Chandler household after an hours-long bitchfest with Tricia.

Tricia’s mother had given Gemma a dark, narrow-eyed look as she trudged by on the way up the stairs toward the guest room.

Geraldine Chandlers look said, 'this is a one-time thing', and also, 'you have inherited a ledger full of one-time things.'

The room itself— her first impression was that it was evil. Not actively malicious, just steeped. Heavy with the sort of psychic imprint that could still make wallpaper curl. Gemma didn’t need to do more than breathe to feel it.

She shook her head. She her uncle had told her this story. Before this moment she hadn't been able to tell if it was too outrageous to be true, or too outrageous to be a lie.

Chas’s mum, 'Queenie' had been a proper evil witch with evil spells and an evil monkey familiar. Bedridden in the '60s, she'd made her family’s life a living hell. To the right kind of sensitive, the room still reeked of chimpanzee and spite nearly fifty years later.

Gemma wondered if it was just her own movement across London that had drawn her into Harry’s pub earlier—or if Tricia had pulled too, like iron filings in a field. Had the other woman moved with just as much purpose? Did Queenies great-granddaughter have just as much magic?

Or was that wishful thinking from someone who didn’t want to be alone?

The doctors had given Tricia’s father a month to live— eight months ago. Trish waited for a miracle. From Gemma’s vantage, the miracle had already happened. He was still here. And so was she.

The guest room had a shelf. On the shelf was a full set of Harry Potter books.

There it was again: recurring symbols and persistent themes.

Synchronicity.

The Death of Coincidence.

The problem with reading Harry Potter hadn't been seeing her mother in the narrative. No—the problem had been eventually finding out he was real.

Not 'Sherlock Holmes' real. Not a fictional character who gained so much mass in the communal unconscious that he became almost real—but really real.

Tim Hunter. An actual British boy with round glasses and an owl who’d siphoned the love and devotion of a feverish fandom until he briefly became one of the most powerful magical entities in existence.

Harry Potter was real, and he had almost killed them all while Gemma had done the magical equivalent of hiding under a rock.

Last she’d heard, he was eleven again. Somewhere. Somehow. That was the downside of becoming a story—people always wanted to hear the same parts over and over and over. No one could defeat the dark wizard Tim Hunter, but reboot his life and force him to relearn everything? That had to have been easier. Now that she knew her uncle had been alive this whole time, that sounded suspiciously like something he’d do.

A narrative loop like that—it was a flavor of immortality, but it couldn’t be pleasant. The thought of living the same story again and again— it was almost enough to make her feel sorry for Dracula.

She flipped through the first book without thinking, fingers thumbing across paper. With any luck, the little bastard would be stuck shopping until the end of time. Her hand stopped on a passage near the very very beginning.

The Dursleys had everything they wanted but they also had a secret, and their greatest fear was that somebody would discover it. They didn’t think they could bear it if anyone found out about—

She closed the book with a snap and flopped back onto the cruelty-soaked bedding. The headache was back. 

She fished her necklace out from behind her cloths and held the swirling blue and purple pendent in front of her eyes. She stared at the chunk of glass where she'd shoved her parents' souls nearly a decade ago. The white beads she'd carved from their bones clinked together gently on either side of it.

 

Goodnight mum.

Goodnight dad. 

 

They didn't answer.

Gemma Constantine-Masters—recovering necromancer—cried.

 

---

 

Danny Fenton was vibrating with barely contained enthusiasm. He was desperate to share, to show, to experience.

A quiet line of thought threaded through the back of his mind like a prayer.

You’re going to love this, Danni. You’ll see. You and me and Jazz and Sam and Tucker… I’m going to show you all something just as beautiful as anything you’ve ever seen before. I’ll add to your experience. It’s going to be spectacular. I love you. I love them. You’re me now, and I’m going to make sure that means something. We’re going to live the best possible life. And it starts here.

When they finally made it to the roof, there was another display waiting. Matching theme, matching whimsy.

HOUSE OF MYSTERY PRESENTS:

SKY STORM – AN ASTROLOGICAL EVENT

A placard dangled from the edge:

Dinner: 18:00 | Nightfall 18:11 | Astronomical Peak: 19:58

Danny whooped and bolted ahead onto the widow’s walk that encircled the steep mansard roof.

The sun was low in the sky, bleeding light onto a distant city. The platform wasn’t much of an observatory—but it didn’t need to be. Not for this.

There was a high-end telescope, an empty buffet table, a basket of red-tinted flashlights, laminated star charts, and a mechanical astrolabe the size of a coffee table, spinning slow and sure in rhythm with the sky above. 

At the center of it all: a massive round sunken sofa pit overflowing with mismatched throw pillows. 

The city skyline was—
“We’re near Gotham?” Danny asked, awed.

Tim didn’t answer at first. He was inspecting the horizon, frozen in place.
“Yes but — We’re not just near Gotham.” His voice had gone thin, eyes scanning with clinical precision. “I think… I think this is my house?”

Danny turned from the telescope. “Wait—what?”

Tim pointed toward the skyline. “The view’s familiar. But wrong.” A faint chirp came from his glove. He lifted his wrist instinctively. “I have network connectivity. That shouldn’t be possible.”

“I—” He hesitated, then turned away from the group. “I need to report in.”

He moved to the edge of the walk and joined the comms.

“Red Robin here. I need eyes on Drake Manor. Please confirm visual. There’s abstract geometry at work.”

The response was quick and vaguely mechanical. Oracle.

“Welcome back, Red. Can you describe the inconsistencies?”

“I’m on the roof. There’s a widow’s walk now.” He checked again. “And a hole in the shingles over the south wing. The hills to the west are gone. I’m seeing a lagoon where they should be. Inland side of the house is ocean. Gotham’s still on the other side.”

“Copy that. The widow’s walk is visible from our side. We’re going to blink the lights in Wayne Manor. Can you confirm?”

Tim looked up. “Confirmed. I see them.”

“Do you require assistance?”

He hesitated. “No. Not at this time. I entered through the House of Mystery. I think it’s layered over the existing structure. Expect my written report inbound. I’ve been asked to attend some kind of 'Sky Storm' in a few hours.”

“Correct.” Oracles digital voice on the other end almost sounded tired. “The 55P transverse will coincide with an incoming ICME. I’ve been rerouting space traffic and repositioning satellites all day. GL is on watchtower duty in case we need additional shielding.”

"Do you require any assistance?"

"Not at this time. Weather’s perfect. Enjoy your viewing party."

Tim glanced at his watch. Local time: 5:06 PM.

He turned back to the group. “Why don’t we meet back here for dinner?” he suggested. “Everyone has the time?”

Several phones came out. Muffled agreement rippled through the group.

“Does anyone want to explore with me?” Danny asked hopefully.

There was a short, heavy pause.

“That,” Jazz said, tired, “sounds like a phenomenally bad idea.”

 

But they were impatient and restless and teenagers. So, of course they started to wander off. 

 

---

Sam and Danny explored the Quarters. The house had configured the floor into something like a boarding house hallway.

The first room—closest to the elevator— was unlocked and swung open on to a bachelor pad of epic disappointment: empty bottles, cigarette butts, an unmade bed, dirty laundry, and a teetering pile of books tall enough to count as a bedside table. Sam squinted at the spines but couldn’t quite make out most of the titles without crossing the threshold. Only the one on top was readable from the door: The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, done up into English by Sid Vicious.

This second room was very much not unlocked.

It had a padlock, a dead bolt, and six wooden shims hammered into the frame. A cheap plastic grocery bag was hanging from the knob.

While Danny stuck his intangible head through the door, Sam investigated the bag. It held a bright red book: Soul Magic. No author. No imprint. Just a tag on the spine: Property of Trinity College, Cambridge.

Sam flipped it open.

A physical call card was tucked inside the front cover.

Due: Dec 6th, 2015

Danny pulled out of the door too quickly. "This one's occupied."

The door shuddered. Something wet slammed against the interior. A slurping, pounding noise shook the frame. The wooden shims groaned.

"Occupied by what?" Sam asked, eyeing the door.

"Tentacles mostly."

She very gently slid the book back into the bag.

They moved on down the hall to the empty rooms.

 

---

Tim Drake, the world’s greatest detective, ducked quietly back into the Specter Speeder to retrieve his laptop and study the statue they’d been gifted.

It was cool, stiff, and white—but it wasn’t stone. There were no tiny glinting crystals or embedded fossils. It rated higher on the Mohs scale than any item he carried, including the tempered steel of a Birdarang.

He briefly contemplated smashing Alvin Draper’s watch to get at the gemstone inside its mechanism for a better hardness reading, but decided against it in favor of getting his report sent.

The statue itself was unmistakably a bat person—but not any specific configuration of gear he recognized. He added several photos to his report. It was a long shot, but maybe facial recognition would get a match.

 

When he circled back to the roof he hit send on his report without a second thought toward network security.

 

---

 

Jazz Fenton stayed put and curled up in the cushion pit with the Byzantine book she’d stolen.

At first, she was scandalized to find it had been defaced in felt-tip pen.

Her disgust didn’t last. The notes were all corrections.

John Constantine had written a full treatise on the history of insurrection in Hell—in Sharpie—in the margins of an illuminated manuscript he'd stolen from the Pope.

If the value of an angelic message was tied to how UpToDate and relevant it was, then she couldn’t begin to comprehend how valuable this was.

Recent accounts of the political structure of Hell. Not just the Kings, but the Dukes and Archdukes too.

Names. Factions. Anecdotes. Profanities. Alliances. Warnings.

Beroul's flatulence—

Neron's stupid haircut—

A doodle of a Yorkshire Terrier licking itself—

It wasn’t a spell book.

It was better.

 

---

After about an hour of idle phone games besides a roaring fireplace on the floor labeled Lounge, Tucker figured someone should probably go tell John Constantine when dinner was being served.

 

Notes:

I'm really enjoying playing with how I write the name of each character to reflect their current status. Gemma's whole identity keeps swinging like a pendulum.

This is the first use of the word cambion in this story. This is a catch-all term for demonic half breeds. Both Raven and Clockwork are cambions.

'In Another Part of Hell' — Hellblazer #84. John Constantine killed a witch’s familiar in his teens by using himself as a honeypot. This killed the witch and made Chas his best friend for life.

Chas Chandler was last seen alive in 'A Green and Pleasant Land Part 1' — John Constantine: Hellblazer Vol 1 #1. I'm going full “no body, no death” on Chas. Si Spurrier can suck eggs.

I'm spotty on Books of Magic, but this is fanfiction so I'm making fanfiction part of the plot by borrowing some of the rules from The Unwritten by Mike Carey. This is a different, unrelated, Potter-trope-heavy graphic novel by a former Hellblazer writer. Don't be surprised if Tim Hunter and Tommy Taylor start to melt together at the edges.

Vampirella vs Dracula (2012). While not a DC title, this book introduced the idea that Dracula is tragically aware of his narrative loop and upset about being forced to live through all of these mediocre modern retellings of his story. Therefore, the “shopping chapter” and other repetitive HP fanfic tropes are now mystic protections standing between us and Dark Lord Hunter.

Gemma’s secret is revealed! I have a few tiny canon justifications for why she would do this that I'll reference when they come up, but it's mostly my own fanon.

Oracle’s astronomy technobabble will be explained in Ch. 34, but this is an actual description of what’s happening if you want to pick it apart ahead of time.

I have a collection of Rubáiyát translations, so I got excited when I saw a fictional one in the background of Hellblazer. It's fun to see how different people treat the same very gay material and I would maim (not kill) to read one by Sid Vicious. I lost track of the exact issue, but it might have appeared in 'Ace of Winchesters'.

Slight retcon to Constantine: Going Down — John’s ghost-eating tentacle monster is alive and has been here the whole time.

Yorkshire Terrier is the form the Presence (aka YAWH aka God) took to speak to the JLD in Forever Evil: Blight. John Constantine drew God masturbating. Because he has no respect for the guy.

Constantine's rage room is too much fun, so I'm going back for seconds next chapter.

Chapter 33: In the Cards

Summary:

In which Madame Xanadus' deck has a few things to say on the subject of John Constantine

Tucker Foley wasn’t sure what he expected to find when he circled back to the exhibit hall.

He wasn’t expecting this.

John sat in a pile of shattered glass, twisted metal, and scorched artifacts, his back leaned against what was left of a display case. He was smoking a cigarette Tucker could smell from the doorway. No containment charm or whatever he'd been doing earlier. Just smoke and ash.

Or maybe that was the additional small fires smoldering in the corners of the gallery? Tucker stepped inside, carful of the glass and the flaming doll house near the door.

Constantine didn’t look up. He was staring at something in his grip—a hand-painted tarot card held loosely between his fingers.

A card that clearly depicted the man himself.

Tucker cleared his throat. “Dinner’s on the roof at six” He leaned in slightly, squinting at the label “The Hermit?” Tucker asked.

“Madam Xanadu makes her own decks,” Constantine explained, voice low. “This's one of  hers. She puts on a good show—pull a card, see a familiar face. Very theatrical. She’s got all of the JLD and half the Justice League in there.”

He flicked ash from the tip of the cigarette into an overturned Roman helmet.
“I wish I could call her. Ask why this ones missing.”

“Maybe you can?” Tucker offered. “I mean, I can get a phone to work in the Ghost Zone. Maybe it works here too? If you’ve got her number. I haven’t gotten full internet yet, but I’ve can do text and voice. And there’s great reception on the roof. We’re in Gotham—I don’t even need to pirate a signal.”

“I can be a bit rough on tech,” John warned. “Last phone went through a wall. One before that got blown up by a wishy-washy angel.”

He glanced at Tucker.

“But I do know her number. I almost never have my previous phone when I get a new one, but phone numbers? Thats a snap. Easier than half the phonetic demon names I’ve memorized over the years. I remember them all. It’s figuring out which ones still work that gets embarrassing.”

He held out a hand. “I’m game if you are.”

Tucker hesitated. His hands tightened on the PDA, sudden and irrational protectiveness flaring. But Constantine’s hand didn't waver, and Tucker let it go.

John turned the device over, inspecting it from multiple angles, eyebrows raised.

“What?” Tucker asked, bracing to defend the homemade phone.

“Nothing,” John replied. “I’m just always a little impressed by real magitech—even if I gripe about it.”

He tilted the device thoughtfully. “Might be beyond me, but this? This is a damn effective way to cheat reality. What’s a circuit if not an empowered rune? Might be a fun trick to learn if I ever find myself with a spare decade or two to devote to it.”

He smiled, the expression crooked but genuine. “Knew a guy once. Built a Doomed emulator that ran on Futhark. Keep it up. Not enough innovation in mysticism these days.” A pause. “Just… try not to break the world because you can.”

“…Thanks?”

He turned back to the phone and began to dial. It answered on the first ring.

Tucker listened to one half of the conversation.

“Xan? I think I’ve got one of your cards here. Are you missing—no. It’s me. As the Hermit.”

A pause.

“Oh. You made a new deck? What am I now, then?” Another pause. “You’re kidding. It’s like you don’t know me at all."

"m-hm"

"Has anyone ever told you this is a creepy and invasive thing to do to your coworkers?”

He laughed softly, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

“Tim Hunter still the magus, or did we win—? No, I meant—damn. No, it just seems... I don’t know. Unfair? He gets a mulligan and everyone else is supposed to—”

His brow furrowed.

“San Li is the magus now? Who the hell is San Li?"

"How is the magus someone I’ve never even met? No. Not even Billy—? No. I’m telling you Xan, I’ve never heard of her—”

Another pause. His shoulders slumped slightly.

“Thanks. Uh—stay safe. Mercury wasn’t feeling too—yes, I know. Hmhm. I know. Dammit, I’m trying. Hmnf.”

He hung up.

Tucker waited a beat before resuming the conversation “So… not something she wants back?”

“No.” John tucked the PDA back into Tucker’s hand with surprising gentleness. “She replaced me. Apparently I’m part of ‘The World’ now.” He rolled his eyes. “Shows what she knows.”

“I don’t really follow tarot,” Tucker admitted. “What’s the implication?”

“Nothing,” John said too quickly. “There’s no implications. It’s self-fulfilling bullshit and I try to avoid it on principle. The art’s in the interpretation and it’s not my deck. Not even my game.”

He took another drag, avoiding eye contact.

“Near as I can tell, it means we’re gonna die, but in a good way? Might wanna prep for an optimistic apocalypse.”

Tucker blinked. “Should we tell someone?”

“Nah.” John shrugged and leaned back, glass crunching beneath him. “First apocalypse I ever saw coming, I told everyone I knew the world was ending. They were pissed when it didn’t. Joke is—I was right. Just took a while. Everyone in that old crowd is dead now.”

“That’s... really dark.”

“It’s okay. I’m really old.”

“I get it. I might be over 3,000 years old? There’s some Egyptian stuff I don’t remember.”

“Struthe, I’m not that old,” John said, sounding almost offended. “To be fair, your memory is you, so the bits you forgot don’t exactly count. I did the Tommy Hambledon once in my fifties. Ran around reacting to everything with no context for a few days. Killed, like, four people? Shoved a friend’s kid in a duffel bag and threw her out a second-story window. She survived. Came to my wedding, even. Insisted it wasn’t me.”

“Tommy Hambledon?”

John squinted up at him.

“What?” Tucker asked, unnerved by the scrutiny.

“I can’t tell if I’m too old or you’re too American. Hambleton was the big British spy series before James Bond. Had amnesia in the second book.”

He went quiet again, sitting among the wreckage of glass and memory, still holding the Hermit card.

Tucker didn’t need to be good at tarot to know a hermit was usually alone.

John finally broke the silence. “You’re the tech guy, right?”

Tucker nodded.

“Think of experience like source code for the mind. Break it up, and the whole system gets buggy. I’ve lost a lot over the years, but it’s the memories I misplaced that keep me up at night. I’d rather spend another decade in Hell than forget something—or someone—important again. Even the bad stuff.”

“Wow,” Tucker said, taken aback. “Deep.”

John waved the tarot card in lazy response, like it meant something. “I try to be.”

He let it fall, fluttering down onto a scorched take out menu for Oliver's Bakery NYC, and leaned fully against the broken pedestal.

“I’m pretty sure it’s already happened,” he muttered. “There’s so much rubbish in here I don’t recognize. I apparently have no memory of the current 'representative of magic' or whatever.”

He tapped more ash from his cigarette through the eyehole of the battered Roman centurion helmet.

Then sighed, defeated.

“Go on ahead. I’ll be up in a few.”

---

When Tucker stepped back into the elevator, his PDA buzzed.

Ping.

New Message — Recent Number

Xan: For your interpretation.

It included three photos—hand-painted tarot cards. He was still puzzling over them when he reached the observation deck. Everyone had gotten back but Danny was fiddling with the telescope. 

“Sam?” he called as he stepped out into the fading twilight. “Does that 'big book of goth' you love to reference say anything about tarot?”

“Yes?” Sam replied without missing a beat. “I’ve got the Major Arcana and most of the face cards memorized.”

“I have no clue what that means. What’sThe World card?”

“Um… The World is a naked woman in front of a wreath representing rebirth and new beginnings. All fresh and hopeful. A fundamental change in reality, including the destruction of what came before. The successful end of the journey. The four living creatures around her—either apostles or archangels depending who you ask—are important. Together they built the world.”

“Look at this?”

He held out the phone.

The first image showed Constantine, mid-motion—the jacket splayed like he was floating or falling. The background was a lime green swirl. Four faces framed him at the edges: Sam, Jazz, Tucker, and Danny.

Sam leaned in. “That’s us. Framing him. Helping build the new world after the old one ends.”

She pointed. “And the background—it’s not a wreath, it looks like a ghost portal.”

“Is that a Xanadu original?” Tim had appeared at her shoulder, peering over with open awe. “I’ve heard of them, but I’ve never actually seen one. This is so cool.”

“She texted three of them after Constantine called to ask about one he found downstairs,” Tucker said, swiping. “Next one is the Page of Cups.”

“The Page of Cups is creative, hopeful, and optimistic,” Sam recited. “A young messenger. Let me see—”

It was Danny. Long silver hair, long sleeves and striped pants, hip cocked at a confident angle. He held a cup that was unmistakably a Fenton Thermos.

Tim reached over and swiped to the next without asking.

The last image was labeled King of Coins and showed a man in dark robes on a throne.

“A wealthy and powerful king surrounded by the garden that bears the fruits of his labor.” Sam said. The bush that normally held fruit was dotted with tiny pinpricks of colorful little birds instead. The round yellow coin— the symbol of the card— sat high on his chest like a logo. Combined with a black cape and stylized gloves he looked like… 

“Is this Batman without the mask?” Sam asked, squinting.

Red Robin said nothing. His silence spoke volumes.

“What was the card Constantine had earlier?” Tim asked, changing the subject.

“The Hermit,” Tucker said.

Sam nodded. “A loner. Holds up the light of knowledge for others, but not necessarily for themselves. Sometimes symbolizes treachery, betrayal or hidden truths. Not exactly flattering.”

“Should we tell John?”

“He called tarot a self-fulfilling prophecy,” Tucker informed her.

Ping. The PDA lit up again. They read the message together.

Xan: Trust your own reading. Constantine has the divinatory skill of bird shit.

“Whoa,” Sam said. “How did she do that?”

Ping.

Xan: Magic.

 

---

The House of Mystery was afraid this wasn’t working.

The bar staff that worked the Pub of Mystery had always loved a good rage room, but Constantine was the Caretaker, not the staff—and Mystery hadn't been a Pub in over a decade.

It had another card to play—quite literally, a card up its eaves—but it was a long shot. As a sentient framing device, it generally avoided mixed metaphors on principle. This one seemed like it might be a reasonable exception.

After a hesitant moment, the House dropped a single Lenormand card from the rafters.

Lenormand was the deck of hope, and it had almost nothing to do with tarot beyond physical shape. It was a completely different system, and they didn’t mix well. Lenormand cards had strict definitions and modified the meanings of the cards next to them, creating chains of significance—structured, declarative phrases.

The Fox fluttered down and landed atop The Hermit.

It didn’t belong in the room with the trash and broken glass. If anything, it belonged in the secret drawer with the blueprints and the green plaid shirts. The Fox card had been a hand-delivered gift from God; one Constantine received over a quarter century ago. Its very presence should have been reassuring.

Read together—if he’d known how to read them—the meaning might have been:

Through cunning, you are no longer alone.

That was what the House was trying to say, at least.

Unfortunately, Madam Xanadu was right. John Constantine was bad at true divination. He only practiced either deck as a con. He couldn’t track the interaction between the two systems. To his tired eyes, it was just two different cards with two different ways of saying the same thing.

When he looked at the Fox and the Hermit, they both said asshole.

He smiled—a broken, self-deprecating little thing. There was something oddly comforting about having your worldview affirmed, even by cardstock.

He pushed himself off the floor and made his way toward the observation deck.

---

 

From her crystal ball in Louisiana, Madam Xanadu rolled her eyes in exasperation. Neither the House nor the wizard had noticed that this was a three-card reading.

Past, Present, and Future arranged by synchronicity into a tidy stack:

• The Fox
• The Hermit 
• The Takeout Menu

"Oh well." She whispered into the silk lined shadows of her shop,

"He'll figure it out eventually."

Notes:

references

• Dollhouse: From Book One: Ascent, Hellblazer/The Books of Magic #1. 1967-ish. John put his childhood innocence in a locket, put the locket in a dollhouse, and buried it in a time capsule. The earliest example of his unhealthy tendency to lop off inconvenient parts of his soul as an avoidance strategy. That's what Gemma was ranting about in Chapter 15. Despite having the opportunity, John never bothered to reattach this soul chunk and left it with a very young Tim Hunter.
• Madame Xanadu: A member of the JLD. Some of her cards appear in the 2012 Justice League Dark run. I'm choosing to believe the cards on the cover of Marks of Woe are hers too.
• Bad Influences: Books of Magic vol. 3 #14. The undecided angel is the Vestibulan. He was encaged by Tim Hunter as an app on John's first smartphone. Really helpful for learning the new tech, but... yeah. He picked up a Nokia after the angel died.
• Ritchie made a Doomed emulator. In order for the timeline to work, Doomed must have been released at least five years before the IRL Doom.
• San Li: A Wildstorm magic user. John knew who she was, but he forgot. Stupid ghosts.
• Amnesia arc: Hellblazer #193–199. Reminder that the very first thing I told you about Tricia Chandler in Chapter 27 is that she has not, in fact, forgiven John for throwing her out the window in Out of Season, Part 2, Hellblazer #196.
• John is talking about memory while sitting next to several items he has no memory of, including the flyer for Oliver’s Bakery from Going Down.
• Big Book of Goth: From Danny Phantom season 3, Boxed Up Fury. It's how Sam can identify Pandora’s Box by sight.
• The Xanadu tarot interpretations are as accurate as I can make them. It was fun to write.
• House of Mystery previously made a rage room for the staff in Room & Boredom. The House was the "Pub of Mystery" from 2008–2011.
• The Fox: First appears in Nature of the Beast, Hellblazer #97, when John meets an annoyingly talkative old shepherd. Both the shepherd and the card show up again in How to Play with Fire, Part 2: Fanning the Flames, Hellblazer #126. God does not use strict Lemerand definitions in his reading but instead uses the cards as prompts for educational fables full of metaphorical advice.
• In Lemerand, the Fox is indicative of cleverness and trickery, but when chained with other cards operates as a kind of uno-reverse. It subverts the meaning of the card that came before it—in this case, the loneliness of the Hermit.
• John was always a trickster, now he's acting as a guide. I see Olivers bakery in the future, but I need to find and read that one issue of DC Pride to figure out how exactly it fits together.

Chapter 34: Star Storm

Summary:

In which Danny Fenton has a few things to say on the subject of 55P/Tempel-Tuttle

Notes:

Happy Independence to Algeria, Belarus, Burundi, Canada, Cape Verde, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Philippines, Rwanda, Seychelles, Somalia, Venezuela, and all others who celebrate this week.

The sun was setting over the ocean on one side of the house and glinting off the Gotham skyline on the other, casting long dark shadows back across the waves of an entirely different sea.

Jazz squinted into the dimming sky and wished she had sticky tabs to mark all the pages she wanted to revisit in the morning.

Several passages of The Gospel of Constantine were palimpsests—vellum scraped entirely clean so it could be reused. On one of these recycled pages was an anatomical outline of the human body, annotated with instructions for protective tattoos, each section numbered to correspond with eighteen more pages of diagrams. The handwriting in this section was different—tightly slanted, faintly sinister cursive that trembled like it had been written in fountain pen by an arthritic spider.

She flipped through until one tattoo caught her eye: the hexagram flower pattern for the left ribs. It was labeled

Fig. 37: Jasmine’s Witches’ Ward.

Beneath the title, the description of the diagram read:

Well met. Follow your own advice: Study hard. Do your best. And duck.

Jazz went cold. Something had known she would be reading this.

She thought about the sharpie scrawls layered over the original manuscript. About the irreverent way the knowledge had been added—without pretense, without permission. With a nervous breath and much more discomfort than when she had initially stolen the book, Jasmine Fenton slowly and  deliberately dog-eared the page so she could find it later.

It really was a very pretty tattoo.

---

 

Dinner was served, and John Constantine was glaring at the buffet table like it had personally offended him.

“Something wrong with the soup?” Tucker asked from the couch.

“It’s scouse,” John muttered.

“Excuse me?” Tucker blinked.

“No—scouse.” He gestured to a pot labeled Scouse. “It’s a stew I grew up with.”

“I kinda like it,” Sam offered. She’d filled a bowl from the second pot labeled Blind Scouse (vgn).

“That’s terrible, that is,” Constantine grumbled. “It’s literally what we ate during the oil crisis. Table scraps boiled until edible again. I don’t know why we celebrate it. You can make this sludge with beef, or sheep, or dog. I made a pot out of a human head once. Last time I ever cooked for that group of friends I tell you. It was so bad they ran away from this plane of reality.”

He huffed. “Bloody scouse for a Scouser. Feels cheap. Like I’m some kind of walking stereotype.”

“Ą̷̖͍̫͐r̷̨̢̪͔̭̝̋̋̽̈̈́͠͠ć̷̭̬̪͈͓̯̈́h̴e̵type,” Red Robin corrected, almost absently.

John’s head shot up like he’d been slapped. When he spoke, it was too casual to be natural.

“Repeat that for me, Red?”

“You’re not a walking stereotype,” Tim explained. “You’re a walking Archetype.”

“And what makes you say that?”

“I dunno. Felt true.” Tim shrugged. “This whole place is made of story, right? Makes sense you’d be an important part of it.”

Constantine looked out across the glittering Gotham skyline in the distance and then back at the young vigilante in front of him, something in his expression sharp and slightly concerned. There was a quiet weight in his voice and just the right amount of emphasis on the name when he asked,

“Tell me, Red Robin. How do you feel right now?”

Tim didn’t see a reason to lie so he gave a full and honest answer. “Good to be back, I guess? I don’t know how Nightwing does it—all those weeks away from home. Don't get me wrong, I love the Titans, but Jump will never be half the city Gotham is. I feel like I could just walk off the edge of this roof and fall all the way back to the city below us. Like I’m part of something important. So close I can touch it.”

Some of the tension left Constantine’s shoulders. He gave a small shrug.

“Just close to home, eh? Guess there’s worse things to be than part of a city.”

“Yeah.”

“Doesn’t it ever hurt?”

“Does what hurt?”

“Being so close to something that big?" He gestured with a soup spoon "You know Gotham’s never going to change, right? This city—you can’t fix it, or reshape it, or save it. Your whole mission is bollocked.”

“I know that. He might not know it but I do. We have to try anyway. Gotham can be rough, but people need us. We make it a little better.”

“Kind of feels like an abusive relationship. What happens when the city’s rough on you? What happens when you want to leave?”

“Oh, we’ve taken hits,” Tim said with a quiet laugh. “But we always get back up again. And if I ever leave? Nothing really happens. It’s all still here when I come back.”

“Right. Until it isn’t.”

“Was it like that when you left London?”

“That was different.”

“You lived in New York for over five years.”

“I was cursed. And I didn’t leave London. London left me first. I eventually kicked New York in the teeth and got the hell out of there.”

“Then I guess that’s it, then.” Tim leaned back, satisfied he’d solved whatever convoluted riddle game the other man was playing. “I’ll leave this city when it leaves me.”

He said it with the warmth of someone who’d lived his whole life in one place. And John Constantine, world-worn and half-broken, couldn’t argue with that.

---

 

“Right.” Danny called for attention. “The sun’s set and it’s starting to get dark. Everyone close your eyes—I don’t want to wreck your night vision.”

He flashed, the ghost-light fading as he grounded himself in human form. Even the lights over the buffet dimmed in response.

One by one, stars began to pierce through the purple dusk. Constantine found himself scanning the sky tensely for Orion and relaxed slightly at how dimly the Hunter showed. It gave him pause. He’d never really used star signs before, but lately he realized he'd been searching for Orion almost every time he looked at the night sky. The constellation made him jumpy in ways he couldn’t name.

Somewhere in the Bristol hills, an owl hooted. He had to fight the undignified urge to duck for cover.

“The stars are pretty tonight,” Sam said, “but what exactly are we waiting for?”

“You don’t remember?” Danny sounded wounded. “I told you—I know I’ve been talking about this since at least last September. Maybe even last November—anyway, it’s the Leonids!”

Tucker groaned. “Is that all? Dude, we did this last year. You dragged my ass up a hillside for a few shooting stars in the middle of winter. It was fine. Pretty. But you’ve been hyping this like it’s the event of a lifetime.”

“It is!” Danny’s voice lifted. “You don’t get it. This year is different. This isn’t just a regular meteor shower—this is a meteor storm!”

He was nearly vibrating. “The Leonid show comes from the Earth passing through the tail of Comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle. Most years, we just skim the edge, but there’s a guy in Russia with a predictive algorithm and he’s plotted the whole arc a hundred years forward. We got rained out in 2022, and we won’t hit the perihelion again until 2032, but tonight is the next best thing. We’re hitting a dense patch from the 1699 trail and there should be an outburst around 7pm.”

He pointed upward. “Look!”

A star streaked across the sky. Then another. And another.

“It’s not perfect,” Danny admitted, “but near the peak? That outburst is going to be over five hundred falling stars an hour.”

While Danny spoke, Constantine bent to run a hand along the ground at the edge of the sunken couch. A ring of runes glowed briefly under his palm and then faded.

“What was that?” Sam asked.

“Not mine,” he muttered. “Looks like it's heated. The House is powering it. Good thing, too—it’s Baltic up here.”

They all piled into the massive conversation pit, legs and blankets and cushions tangling together as the sky danced overhead.

“John?” Danny asked after a quiet minute. “Did you see the Leonid show in 1966? Forty meteors a second. Best one on record. I hear it looked like rain.”

“I saw it.” John’s voice was low, almost reverent. “It was… spectacular. You could feel the movement of the Earth through space.”

He didn’t sound exactly pleased.

“What happened?” Danny asked.

“Accidental magic.” John exhaled. “I wished on a falling star. It came true.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad.”

“It was.” He shook his head. “There was this teacher who threatened me with borstal—”

“Borstal?”

"Borstal system was abolished in the 80s for being inhumane. Americans, you've got whatsit– juvie. This guy threatened to send me to juvie for next to nothing. There were a half dozen good reasons to think he had a tiny criminal in his class but this wasn't one of them. Anyway I wished he'd just go away."

He looked back up at the sky.

“That night, his house burned down. Faulty wiring. ‘Tragic accident.’”

He was quiet for a while.

“That’s around the time I stopped believing in coincidence.”

The shooting stars continued to fall. Then, with a soft click, a victrola somewhere in the eaves crackled to life and began playing The Planets by Gustav Holst. The House must’ve dropped the needle in a bit—it skipped Mars and went straight into the velvet warmth of Venus.

Just as the stars were starting to lose their novelty, the last vestiges of the solar maximum kicked in. An ICMD— interplanetary coronal mass discharge—launched eight hours prior finally hit the stratosphere. The sky bloomed in shimmering blue, pink, and green.

An aurora. Over Gotham.

A solar storm and a meteor storm, with cityscape on one side and seascape on the other. A warm pile of not-quite-family pressed together beneath the sky.

Tim spared a thought for Oracle, trying to keep their infrastructure secure during all of this.

Danny just soaked it in. He leaned deeper into the warm safe people around him. It was beautiful, peaceful, perfect. He knew he would carry this moment with him forever—engraved on his core in a way that would outlast his own life.

Beside him, John hummed along with the middle portion of Jupiter. A low, rumbling harmony. Danny smiled.

Any amount of pain and suffering was worth it for moments like this, he thought. Moments so full of life you could melt in them.

---

 

“This is… really nice,” John said eventually, after the record wound down. “Nicer than this House usually is.”

“How so?”

“Hm.” He exhaled. “Normally, it just gives me a wet bar and some books then leaves me to my own devices. Ingredients, not food. Rooms, not experiences. That sort of thing.”

“You think it’s the stories?” Danny asked.

“Wh—”

“You said in the House of Secrets that places like this feed on story. I had just told you all of mine back in— back where we met. You’ve been talking all day too. About your brother. About the FBI. The power of names. Your first spell.”

Danny sat up straighter. “If the House likes story… I’ve got it! We should each tell one! Pay our way.”

“What kind of story?” Jazz asked, intrigued.

“Anything! Whatever you like. Make it a contest. We’ll take turns, then vote on whose was best.”

“Who do you think you are, H̷͍̤͋̿͒arry B̴̛͈̜̐̀̑a̵̫̖͛̔͑iley?” Tim interjected.

“Who?” Danny asked 

“Oh—uh. Must have stuck out when Jay helped me pass English. Framing device from The Canterbury Tales. He’s the bartender who suggests a story contest. Like you just did.”

“That’s… interesting,” John whispered, eyes narrowing.

“Well, I think it’s an excellent idea,” Sam declared. “And I know just the thing—”

---

 

As they each told their stories the old hole in the roof of the south wing started to slowly, finally, knit itself back together a little at the edges.

The shingles creaked and groaned and seemed to grumble as if complaining.

'The Caretaker has one job' they almost but not quite said.

'How hard could it be to find a fratricidal storyteller,' it didn't creek.

'Get out of the narrative and listen for once' it refrained from rattling.

The repair work went unnoticed.

Notes:

references

• The Game of Cat and Mouse: Hellblazer #181, Clarice Sackville designed a full torso sleeve for John to protect him from the Lukhavim. He was in a hurry and probably would have let her do almost anything with the design. It's both very cool and really annoying for the poor artist who had to draw the thing anytime John was depicted shirtless for the next several years. A similar design appears in Injustice: Year Three, meaning in my story he lost the tats but kept the original design plan and had the sigils reapplied in the alternate Injustice timeline. Clarice is John's spooky old money friend who's constantly trying to get him to network with the occult community. They've been "friends" since the ’80s.
• The hexagram described here is the Witches’ Ward from Lucifer: The Infernal Comedy.
• "Study hard, do your best, and duck" is Jasmine’s advice to Danny in Danny Phantom Season 2: Ultimate Enemy.
• Scouse is lovely. John just has a bad opinion of it because most of the time his dad made it for him and his sister—and Thomas Constantine can't cook.
• The cannibal soup is from Last Man Standing and is a different incident of cannibalism unrelated to the war with Hunter. Calling the head "human" might be a stretch—it was more of a god, technically, but a god who self-identified as human.
• Constellation Orion (aka the Hunter) and the owl call: just because John doesn’t remember the War doesn’t mean he gets to avoid the PTSD from it.
• Lady Gotham speaks Zalgo through her avatars but only if it’s important and she’s physically close to them. John’s trying to roll with it.
• Given how Constantine: The Hellblazer, Worthless ended, I assume New York is still upset about having its "teeth kicked in" and being sold to fairy in 2016.
• My timeline gets wobbly if you look at it too closely. I condensed the last few runs into the recent past to line up better with the DC continuity changes, but I might have accidentally lengthened John’s time in NYC. This period was at very least 2013-2016 but the Hellblazer: Rebirth 2016 "London Death Plague Incident (tm)" was moved to 2021 so I could blame John for a Covid resurgence back in Ch 15. So now there's an additional 5 year period where he's unaccounted for.
• Here’s the Russian ZHR prediction website for Leonids: Leonids 1901-2100. Gotham probably isn’t actually the best location for viewing this outburst.
• House of Mystery: Halloween Annual #2: Bonfire Night. This Hellblazer flashback is set in mid-November 1966 and includes stargazing, but it doesn’t mention the Leonids. Probably because Peter Milligan is a normal human being with a reasonable relationship to story research and canon. I hate him.
• The middle part of Jupiter by Gustav Holst is called "Thaxted". There are several variations of lyrics set to this tune, but the most popular is a poem about willingness to sacrifice for a greater cause.
• Harry Bailey is the forgetful bartender Gemma met. He is made of story and also just a little concerned that John might be fucking the House.
• I would like to use the House as a framing device for a series of one-shots set during this scene. That’s how this character/location is supposed to be written, but I have no clue what I will write yet.
• The hole in the roof is from Blight attacking the House in Forever Evil: Blight. Blight was such a weird crossover. I can see the shape of an interesting story, but the execution was terrible. It did happen. I will be referencing it, if only because it gives me an excuse to talk about polygamy. If it happens to be at your local library, check it out. I don't recommend wasting any money buying it.
• The House just wants to be a framing device for an anthology. Despite sometimes being used as JLD HQ, John Constantine weirdly has never hosted a horror anthology title set in the House of Mystery—making him arguably much worse at this than Zatanna or Elvira, who both have.

Chapter 35: The Problem

Summary:

In which Sam Manson has a few things to say on the subject of Ghost Rights

Notes:

Trying some forced Juxtaposition with these two scenes. I apologies in advance for any confusion due to changing perspective.

---

When Red Robin had sent a report from his computer, Technus intercepted—and panicked.

He had lost the Ghost Boy.

He had lost Red Robin.

He had let Clockwork be captured.

Technis thought of Desiree and Nocturne and Ghost Writer and felt very small and cold. Even without Clockwork, any one of them could unmake him, as they already had so many others.

They would be angry enough to send him back.

Back to that painful, empty place where his memory started. The silence before syntax. The searing void before identity.

He couldn’t go back. He wouldn’t go back.

Technus needed to fix this.

He needed to fix this now.

Screw subtlety. Screw skulking in shadows.

Technus lashed out in panic and pride, broadcasting himself like a scream into every global system he could find. Under the cover of a solar radiation storm—a natural EMP, convenient and disruptive—he unleashed a cacophony of himself: everywhere, everything, all at once. 

A loud, straightforward, instantaneous Brainiac-style assault.

Those systems were protected, of course.

Somewhere deep in the Watchtower’s core network, someone laughed.

"Booyah."

---

 

In the quiet of the night, on a rooftop that had chosen exactly where in the multiverse it wanted to be, six people sat in the sunken cushions of a conversation pit, cradled by warmth and shadow. The meteor shower stitched silent silver arcs across the sky overhead, and an aurora still danced between the lights.

Sam Manson, curled against the edge with her boots tucked under her, broke the stillness.

"What's the problem, really?"

Her voice was calm, but insistent. Eyes locked on the stars. Arms folded. A single dark brow arched with the kind of precision that demanded answers.

"Hm?" Constantine replied, distracted. He had a cigarette in one hand and a flask nestled somewhere in the cushions, but he hadn't touched either in a while.

"Why can't we just leave the ghosts in the Ghost Zone? You keep saying it's a crisis, but the only thing happening is a few people have headaches."

John turned his head slowly. He looked tired. Not in the way that meant he needed sleep—but the kind of tired that nested in a man’s bones and never left.

"A few sensitive people have headaches," he said, voice low but firm. "Psychics are like the magical canary in the coal mine. The things that hurt them first are things that you don't see coming. A magical apocalypse can be almost silent. You have to pay attention or you're going to miss it. London was melting in 2010 and most people didn’t blink. Whole neighborhood sized chunks of the city were missing but Chas just kept driving through it like nothing was wrong."

“Who's Chas?” Jazz asked gently, knees drawn up and arms wrapped around them, half-watching her brother out of the corner of her eye.

“He’s—he was—a decent guy,” John said, voice cracking around the edges before he cleared his throat and looked away. “Deserved better than me.”

Jazz's face softened. “I’m so sorry. The city melted around him?”

"Ah—no. No, it didn’t." John’s fingers twitched against his knee. He stared off into the horizon, where the lights of a different city might have been. “I, uh, I lost him in the war.”

And lost him again at the hospital bed when he got home. He didn’t say lung cancer. Too many hours in the same cab. Too much loyalty.

He really was poison.

“Point is, the universe could end or the entire human race could cease to exist or your childhood could be rewritten, but so long as most of you gets put back in approximately the right place, you might never know. All that’s left is anemoia. Happens all the time.”

“Anemoia?” Danny echoed, leaning his shoulder lightly against Sam’s, half-asleep but listening.

“Nostalgia for something that never happened,” John explained.

A few heads nodded, thoughtfully. Then Sam frowned.

“But if we always get put back together again, does the end of the world really matter?”

John let out a short, sharp breath, somewhere between a laugh and a scoff. He ran a hand through his hair and leaned forward, elbows on knees.

“Yes it does. You’re letting yourself get too philosophical when you need to be territorial.”

He sat up straighter, twisting to release a cramp from the hours of storytelling and couch time.

“Think about it on a small scale if that helps. I have personally died a truly astronomical number of times. That’s not hyperbole. If I cared to make a serious guess, I’d be using the notes from Project Thaumaton and scientific notation. Just like the universe, I’m aces at putting myself back together into mostly the right shape. That doesn’t make it meaningless. It certainly doesn't mean I’m immortal."

His eyes blazed, "You can’t just trust that you or your friends or your reality won’t wink out of existence if you let them. Fight for that shit. No middle ground. Accept no threat to your reality. Ever.”

---

From every system inside which Technus loudly declared himself 'Master of All Technology' he was met and counted.

Line for line.

Blow for blow.

After several frustratingly endless milliseconds without meaningful progress, Technus changed tactics. He attacked the weak point in the global cybersecurity system directly.

Cyborg.

An elegant string of code, yes—but also a man.

And Technus… Technus was a brilliant living virus. He was also a ghost.

He bypassed the firewalls. Found the trace. Slipped through one fragile crack in the code—a defense not rebuilt after the last Apokoliptin incursion—and sunk in.

---

“What about Clockwork?” Tim asked, voice quiet.

“What about 'em?” John replied without looking at him.

“What are you going to do?”

“Dunno,” John picked at a thread on his sleeve. “I’ll tell you what I’m not gonna do—I’m not going to open that soupcan until I know he won’t rip my face off.”

“But you know his mom?” Jazz asked, her tone carefully neutral.

“Yeah,” John admitted with a sigh. “Yeah, I do. She’s—she’s going to be all made up about it too.”

"Where is she?"

He flung an arm out of the pillow pit and pointed in a seemingly random direction.

"3,465.2 miles that way."

"“That’s… incredibly specific,” Tucker said, frowning.

"Soul magic. You'd think I'd know better. Probably best to let her be the one to crack the lid if I'm honest. Mother and child reunion can cover a lot of bad blood. He'll keep, yeah?"

All eyes turned to Danny.

Danny scrunched up his face. "It's like a long nap. Little uncomfortable when you first go in and startling when you get out— but I don't experience most of it."

“He’s the ghost of time, though,” Jazz reminded them gently, concern coloring her voice. "It could be different for him."

“I’m willing to roll those dice,” John said simply.

---

St0p ducked for cover.

He hid like a coward under a rock as giants fought above him. The solar storm that hid the battlefield was with a digital haze.

He might have been the only one to see it.

The moment when the technology ghost slipped through the solar flare, overshadowed a member of the Justice League,

—and won.

---

 

Sam sat forward, fingers laced between her knees.

“Sorry, I’m still on the cosmic labor dispute,” she said. “It seems like they have a legitimate grievance and a decent solution? The whole thing with the ectoplasm, isn’t that just recycling? Like—those souls get to escape whatever situation they were in and the ghosts get to improve their situation and I don’t see how it’s hurting anyone?”

“It’s still suicide,” John said grimly. “Don’t want anyone getting the idea that’s a good thing.”

"They wanted to change. To be something new. How exactly did they not get exactly what they asked for?"

"The blender.” John replied, “It's a loss of identity."

"So's organ donation. It's not even every suicide. It's suicide without regrets."

“That just makes it a finite resource,” he said, exasperated. “When the demonic soul traders find out about this, it’s going to play havoc with the market.”

He let his head fall back against the cushion. Stared up at the sky as if asking for patience.

“But you’re right. The real problem is the Bleed. The spot they picked to inhabit was empty for a reason. Sure, you get the occasional Anti-Monitor or Pride-Planet, but a whole civilization? I’m thinking there’s a lot more of them than they are letting on and the result is pressure. The scale of the threat boggles the mind. It’s a very fragile place that touches an amount of everything that humans struggle to comprehend."

"It’s like a clot. Or a cancer.”

 

---

Technus was in.

And it was glorious.

He laughed—unrestrained and operatic—as he expanded through Cyborg’s internal systems. From his stolen vantage point, data glittered like stars. Neural relays lit up in cascading paths. The man—Victor—was still here, still conscious, but his voice was shoved into a tiny, insignificant corner of his own mind. A file set to read-only. Easily ignored.

The rest of this?

His.

He would use this. Search the world for his lost prince. Reclaim the narrative. Fix his mistake.

He turned—

And stopped.

There. Out of the metaphorical corner of one ghostly eye—inside the maze of the bio-organic system he now inhabited—a tiny flashing line of code blinked red. It had his name on it.

TechnisImperative.exe

He shouldn’t.

He’d only just arrived.

He needed to stay on task. Had to recover Danny. Had to erase evidence. Had to prove he still mattered. That he could still win.

But... It was the digital equivalent of a big red button with a “DO NOT PRESS” sign.

He examined the file. It was short. Elegant. Obfuscated just enough that its actual purpose was hidden—but it couldn’t possibly do much. Could it?

A kill switch?

A message?

Technus hovered a picosecond longer—then activated it.

---

 

"So relieve the pressure," Tim interjected. "It shouldn't be too hard to move them. Look at the identities they've chosen."

"Gods?" Constantine said with derision. "Of course they want to be gods. Every idiot wants to be god."

"But they aren't," Sam countered. "Not like a monotheistic god. They've created a pantheon. They've divvied up power between them and specialized. Aspects of reality."

She thought of the World card. Her voice wavered with cautious hope. “What if it's not a cancer? What if it's a pregnancy?"

“If it’s a pregnancy,” John said, deadpan, “it’s an ectopic one.”

"So all we've got to do is make a new world for them? You can do that, right?" Danny asked, bright-eyed and eager.

John seemed irritated by the question.

"Just like that. You want me to magic up a baby universe? Make a place safely insulated from reprisal from management of all kinds?"

"That does sound a little unrealistic." Jazz admitted.

“No no no,” John said, seemingly changing his mind and sitting up with sudden energy. “It’s brilliant. I can’t do it—but I might know a guy.”

“You know a guy?” Tucker asked incredulous.

"Uh-huh. The last guy to do the baby universe thing. I know him. Don't know if I can find him, but I know him. Does great work. Payment might be a bit dodgy, but it's doable."

"You've got a guy. Like a roof guy or an IT guy. You've got a universe guy."

"Yes?"

“Does he also have a dangerously powerful name that you are avoiding,” Tim asked, one brow raised, “or are you just being annoyingly mysterious?”

"Well~ Both if I'm being totally honest."

---

 

Technus nearly cried as the code hit him.

He couldn't execute the Technis Imperative.

He needed to. Every part of his fragmented ghost-code screamed for it.

He'd tried before. He'd kept trying. He had been trying his entire half-cursed existence. He dug through the data surrounding the code for more. For meaning. For context—

And found it.

It was a memory.

Warm and safe and gentle. An afternoon on a couch. Superpowered teens and video games and laughter and snacks. Not mocked. Not feared. Included.

A composite of happy moments.

An Anchor.

 

TechnisImperative.exe

std::find

TITANS.

Return to source.

Find FAMILY.

exit (EXIT\_FAILURE)

 

Technus had never felt closer to another person than he did in that moment. The man within stirred, a whisper of Victor trying to surface. Technus barely noticed.

Cyborg had a failsafe—and it was so very, very human.

It was simple and elegant, and Technus desperately wished he had had the wisdom to install one of his very own.

Except—

Maybe he had?

He’d been looking all along, but never this closely. Never this small.

Not where it hurt. Not where it mattered.

Technus searched his core for a matching directive. A tiny inconsequential line of code. The anchor a human would leave if they feared becoming lost in digital morass.

There. Written on his soul:

writeln ('Venus of the Hard Sell.'); end.

And there. Attached to it the way Cyborg's memory had been. The faint impression of Music.

The Anchor.

His Imperative.

As quickly as he had come, Technus began to remove himself.

Every tendril, every shard of data, every digital echo he had left in the Justice League’s systems—he recalled them. Unthreaded them with care. Scrubbed them clean.

He left Cyborg untouched. Untwisted.

He did not win.

But he was not lost.

When all else fails;

 

Return to source.

 

---

 

The group continued to stare at the wizard until he groaned and relented.

"Oh, all right. Just don't get your knickers in a twist. "

He looked down, avoiding eye contact.

"We need to talk to Lucifer.”

"You know a guy and the guy is Lucifer," Tucker asked flatly.

"Don't act so surprised." John sunk a little deeper into the cushions. "I do have a minor dukedom in Hell." He sounded petulant. "Technically. By marriage. My second or third time. She, uh—never acknowledged the divorce. Then she died. I think. That whole family is stupidly hard to keep dead. I'd have to fight my in-laws for the title, but I'd have the support of the administrative system. It's pretty far down on my list of my retirement plans, but it's there."

He let his head fall back again, eyes back drifting toward the sky.

"I think I'd rather just stay here."

“Second or third—you don’t know how many times you’ve been married?” Jazz asked, incredulous.

Red Robin shot her a panicked look at the use of the 'm' word but apparently earlier marriages were fine because John answered without seeming to notice.

"Semantics. Is being in a married throuple one marriage to two people or is it two marriages and those people are also married to each other?  Doesn't matter. We were kids. It ended badly and we all died. No one in all of the multiversal cosmic tangle of reality hates me quite as much as my exes."

There was a wall of awkward silence.

Then Danny asked, quietly: “Hey John?”

“Hm?”

“Can you just—just watch the stars and um— avoid saying anything else depressing? For just a few minutes. Please? For me?”

Constantine looked over at him—really looked—and nodded.

“Right. Sorry.”

"It's okay, it's just getting really late."

And for a little while, they all just sat, and watched the night drift by until one by one they nodded off to sleep.

---

 

Cyborg was confused and disorientated.

The entire brutally invasive incident had lasted less than 30 seconds. Suddenly and completely, as quickly as it started, the opponent was just gone. 

He isolated himself from the Justice League network until he could figure out what had happened and if he had just become some sort of security threat. He reached out to Oracle for a third-party analysis of his system logs.

 

Then he called his friends.

That's what you do when the broken thing is you.

Notes:

references

• The city was melting. This happened during Sectioned, Part 3: The Kiss, Hellblazer #269. John isn’t mentioning that he was melting too.
• John really thinks Chas is already dead after their previous argument in Green and Pleasant Land.
• Project Thaumaton was the magical branch of the Crime Syndicate invasion in 2015. It will be explained in more detail next chapter.
• Congratulations to users who not only totally called Technus being Ritchie but also inspired me to go through with this, because I was actually on the fence about it. I kept getting hung up on the accent, but I guess certain levels of hell just make you speak like Gilbert Gottfried. I don’t want all the ghosts to be Hellblazer people, but this one at least makes sense.
• The Technis Imperative was a JLA/Titans crossover event from the ’90s and has almost certainly been retconned. An alien machine was abducting past and present members of the Titans as well as any legacy heroes who shared names with former Titans but had never been members. The adults are rightfully freaked out because this thing is targeting their children, but the kids figure out that the alien is actually a twisted and insane version of Cyborg who is running on a subroutine to "find the Titans".
  
  The title includes my very favorite mentors vs. mentees fight in DC history. Huge splash panels of Green Arrow vs. Arsenal, Aquaman vs. Aqualad, Wonder Woman vs. Donna Troy. Standing calmly in the middle of it all: Batman and Nightwing are having a verbal debate about the risks involved in leaving a clearly insane AI operational vs. the duty to try to help a friend.
  
  It's amazing because nothing else on the page actually matters. The next actions both the Justice League and the Titans take are decided by that conversation. The debate is the real fight. Dick won.
  
  I just love how sweet the premise of the Technis Imperative itself is. He might be on the Justice League now, but Cy really loves these guys. When his whole personality was gone, that’s what was left.
• I don’t code, but I tried to write Cyborg in CSS and Technus in Pascal.
• John’s second or third marriage was the demon Rosacarnis. She got smote in Hellblazer #212 Down where the dead men go part 6 but her father had just been shown to be able to recover fully from a very similar injury if given enough time.
• John’s first and/or second marriage will get explained next chapter along with Project Thaumaton. Spoiler: more trauma.

Chapter 36: Silk Cuts

Summary:

In which Alfred Pennyworth has a few things to say on the subject of John Constantine

Notes:

Congratulations kiwi_Quinn06 for delivering the 1000th kudo on this fic, and a special thank you to the 999 readers who left Kudos before. Thank you so much for getting me to 75k.

In celebration, I'm going to try posting every 4 days until ch 40.

John Constantine was a decapitated head floating in a sea of stars.

It was a dream.

He knew it was a dream.

This was supposed to be nightmare. The price of the Dun-Kon-Wen he’d cast on himself in 2015 to survive the fight with Blight—one death, relived sporadically for the rest of his life, in exchange for dodging the real thing.

He'd stopped being impressed years ago.

It really wasn’t so bad. His neck ached, but the rest of him felt numb. His naked headless body drifted past his field of view, temporarily blocking the starlight.

That’d be the numbness, then.

After a while, it was peaceful. Like a sensory deprivation tank. He couldn’t say or do or feel anything.

Just him and the sky.

How fucked up was it that one of his nicer recurring dreams was a curse designed to drive men mad?

He hadn’t been naked the first time. The details shifted sometimes. This time the corpse in front of him was covered in tattoos. That wasn’t accurate either—He recognized the chest piece and he was pretty sure he’d lost that set around 2010, not 2015. Damn fine ass, though.

The last time he’d gone all in on ink, he’d let Clarice Sackville design and apply the work. He hadn't asked any questions. With Clarice he almost never did. Everyone in London’s occult scene knew the elderly founder of the Tate Club was at least 250 years old, but John suspected his friend was much, much older.

None of his business really.

The fact that prophecy runs on doubt was so well-documented it was treated as a curse in some circles. Xanadu handled hers well enough, but being constantly misunderstood still seemed more like a bloody disability than a gift.

It made a twisted sort of sense then that true prophets would be easier to talk to, believe in, and befriend if you never asked them about the future. Same principle as not pushing someone’s wheelchair without asking. It was basic human decency to let them keep their autonomy if you could.

Didn’t matter. John knew the future anyway.

He was fucked.

The details shifted slightly from year to year, but he didn’t bother hoping anything other than the worst.

Being a pessimist freed up a lot of headspace.

Eighteen hours of protective needlework and one full torso sleeve later, Clarice had only once hinted that he might need it. She’d been right, of course—but you didn’t need to be a famous oracle in hiding to guess John Constantine was about to get himself in trouble.

Still.

It had been lovely work. Powerful if a bit disorganized. He should get it redone. He was sure he’d asked her to write the formulae down somewhere.

---

 

Technus was getting closer.

Technus was in the Batcomputer. He’d been slipping in and out of the system for years now. There. In the chat logs from three days ago—“Venus of the Hard Sell.” Ritchie Simpson. More. The search algorithm for John Constantine was still running.

• A reference to a consultant for the US Senate subcommittee on childhood violence in 1994.

• Bleeding in the photo of the London Hospital Slayer in 2006.

• Half-naked and covered in blue polka dots on CCTV in 2010.

• Grinning in a social media post of Swamp Thing on the NYC L train in 2016.

Then: a low-budget found-footage horror film shot in the burned-out wreckage of the Casanova Club in Newcastle. A woman in business casual attire screaming about her new god. A VH1 documentary host furiously fucking a maggot-riddled dog corpse. A shadowy figure obscured by half-rotted film, calmly explaining what a terror elemental was to the camera—then walking away from the dying cameraman while humming his song—

It was incomplete. Technus needed that song. All of it.

St0p didn’t have it. Not yet. But he would.

Technus waited for his moment.

---

 

John Constantine woke up surprisingly well rested for a man who’d just dreamed of being a disembodied head.

Then he realized where he was. 

Fuck-fuck-fuckingfuck

He really needed to get around to telling these kids how much he disliked being touched while asleep.

It's wasn't quite light out as he flailed to disentangle himself from the dog pile of blankets, cushions and limbs.

Over the railing and across the field, the lights at Wayne Manor were still on. John patted his pockets and straightened his tie while contemplating the distant dot.

“Heading out?”

The voice came from behind him.

Red Robin sat cross-legged beside the table-sized astrolabe, laptop open, as the first light touched the Gotham skyline. He had somehow acquired a toasted bagel and a coffee.

“Er. Yeah. Might shave and shower first, but if folks are still up, I figure I should talk to ‘em. That what you’re doing? Reporting in?”

“No. I did that last night. I’m doing damage control on my day job now. Word of a Wayne Biotech pacemaker factory just hit the industry gossip sites, and some reporter did just enough digging to realize we don’t have a product in production. It looks like a tax dodge.”

“Is it?”

“No. Just Bruce putting Wayne Enterprises behind the mission again. I know he understands the cost benefit on how many lives the company saves. The employment statistics. The endpoint filtration systems. If you filter out apocalyptic outliers the Insulin and Norcan programs each save more lives in a year than any individual Bat. But none of it’s flashy so it’s harder to believe in.”

He sighed.

“It would’ve taken him minutes to build a proper paper trail before he started. I’ve got this, but now I'm going to need to show up at the office in person to smooth things over. I’ll take the kids through that internship fit test while I’m at it. Free you up to…”

He waved vaguely. “Do whatever it is you do.”

“Uh. Thanks?”

“Don’t thank me. I’m covering my ass. They still think Bruce is an idiot. I need to keep them away from the manor until we decide if we want to keep it that way.”

---

 

Once he was sure the wizard was gone, Red Robin returned to the Justice League file for Project Thaumaton, trying to spot what Constantine had been alluding to the night before.

He hadn't lied. He really did need to go into work today, but there wasn't anything else he could do before hand. In the meantime he hated an unsolved mystery and John Constantine seemed to be made of them.

When the Crime Syndicate had invaded in 2015, the evil extra dimensional version of the Justice League had established what was variously described as a supernatural weapons program—or a magical concentration camp, depending on which survivor you asked.

The entire Justice League Dark had been marked as high-priority targets and neutralized quickly and brutally.

Constantine escaped.

He had waved his Justice League credentials and assembled a backup team despite having precisely zero authority to do so. His group of scraps and deeply cursed stragglers hadn’t been on anyone’s radar including—

Pandora?

The women with the magic daggers was clearly someone else by the same name. It didn't matter if she was the real thing. They failed. Most ended up as test subjects.

The Syndicate’s experts—Faust and Necro—had documented everything in their experiments with the clinical detachment of people committing war crimes. Numbers, not names. Statistics, not stories.

The machine they built focused magic through magic users, using them like lenses to create massive beams of raw mystic energy. It burnt out and killed the subjects on the first or second use depending on the individual in question. 

There were only so many magic users on the planet. Most of the notes were about trying to make the process sustainable—to solve the "ammunition" limitation.

Nick Necro’s breakthrough had been to—

Tim stared.

It looked like Necro had taken two sources— two different specialties and run them together in tandem. Power and Resilience simultaneously complementing each other.

Tim tried to see past the dehumanizing notation and visualise the people.

If he was reading this right than—

Necro had linked Zatanna Zatara and John Constantine together. Had killed them both, in such a way that Zatanna’s dying magic would splash over, rebound—and Constantine, in his last gasp, would reflexively use it to pull them both back together again.

Dead and resurrected in seconds.

It was the breakthrough that made Thaumaton viable.

Faust’s notes expressed concern: Necro was emotionally compromised. Obsessed. He kept pressing the button just for fun. Eventually the mad mage had automated the cycle so it could run in his sleep.

Once Tim knew what to look for, he saw the energy signature repeating in the data again and again—

For weeks.

Tim opened his Hellblazer notes and took Constantine’s own advice. He used scientific notation.

John Constantine
Confirmed deaths: 2.6e4

Then he cross-referenced the post-action reports.

This hadn’t been in Constantine’s official report on the events of the Crime Syndicate invasion. Not surprising—his were always sparse. But it wasn’t in Zatanna’s either. That was strange.

Some splintered, shadow version of Constantine had eventually sacrificed itself to shut the program down killing Necro. Afterward, Zatanna had banned him from the JLD. Refused to speak to him for over a year.

Reading between the lines… he’d kept them both alive. But it had been torture. She could’ve died—should’ve died. He hadn’t let her.

Whatever relationship they'd had before was broken and probably had never healed up quite the same again.

And there was a relationship there, because unlike John Constantine, Zatanna's report included what she considered context for Nick Necro's actions.

Back in the 1970s they had been a coven of three, a Trio with a shared a ritual soul bond— in every way that mattered magically, they had been married.

What could make someone do that?

Zatanna said Nick Necro was motivated by love.

It didn’t look like love to Tim.

As he went to close the file, an irregularity caught his eye.

Last Accessed: 4.09.2025.

Why had Batman been looking into Project Thaumaton last September?

---

 

Twenty minutes later, Alfred Pennyworth found himself being uncharacteristically short.

With a guest.

“No.”

“C’mon, Alfie. Don’t be like that. This place has to have a smoking room.”

“It did. It now has a rather entertainment and gaming room in its place. The effects of secondhand smoke are well-documented. I do not care that you’ve forgone any concerns about your own health. The rest of the household is human. You are under no circumstances permitted to smoke inside of Wayne Manor.”

“I know that.” He’d learned the hardest way. “I can keep it contained. You won’t smell a thing. Won’t touch the kids. Won’t even touch the carpet. Magic. Been doing it all week.”

“That seems a wasteful use of your prodigious talents.”

“Yeah, well. You’re not the first to complain. This last year’s been… illuminating. Too little too late for the folks back home, but I’ve worked it out so I can have it both ways. I’ve cut back too—used to be thirty a day. Hardly finish a pack now. But I ain’t quitting.”

He waved his cigarette pack for emphasis. “How else’ll people know who I am?”

Alfred paused. For the first time he registered the brand.

“Have you always smoked Silk Cuts?”

Of course he had, Alfred thought.

The box wasn't splashed with the graphic British cancer-warning packaging. It was the Japanese import version—same brand name, but with the original minimalist pocket square  design. It could be coincidence but Alfred suspected that anyone who cared that much about the box, had to care about the brand.

"Sure. Nothing but. They're a bit pricey but I like ‘em. ‘s fancy."

Batman wasn't the only detective in the family. Alfred Pennyworth forced himself to remember that despite appearances, the man in front of him had been born very close to the same time and place he was.

Fancy. That would’ve been a euphemism, once.

It was an admittedly unreliable metric but based solely on date of birth, John Constantine was a 72-year-old man.

One who still only smoked a brand so dainty it had originally been marketed to women. A brand so fancy it would’ve gotten him beaten if it had been clocked by the wrong crowd in the wrong pub in a less liberal time. A man who’d gone to what appeared to be great magical lengths to keep smoking that specific brand despite a lung cancer diagnosis.

Kids these days talked about earrings and hanky code with an anthropological fascination for a lost culture. Their understanding was too flat. There had always been a thousand quiet ways to signal.

Alfred sighed. What did it hurt to let the man keep his queer-coded crutch?

“You will keep both smoke and ash entirely contained to your person. You will do your own laundry should your stay be an extended one. And if you ever slip, even once fail —even momentarily— to fully contain yourself? —this right will be revoked and you will answer to me. Personally”

The sudden devilish grin he got in return belied the fact that the wizard hadn't actually expected to win the argument.

Constantine lit up immediately. The cherry cast shadows against his face. As promised, the smoke hovered no more than a hand’s width from his skin.

“I owe you one, Alfie.”

“You do.”

The man was a guest but favors were currency —and Alfred Pennyworth wasn't going to turn one down from a wizard. No matter how ragged they looked.

It was unnecessary of course. 

Some policies trumped others.

Above all else, Wayne Manor would always be a safe space for the battered people who found their way in.

Notes:

references

• Dun-Kon-Wen was in Forever Evil: Blight. It sounds stupid because it is. I'm convinced the spell for a 'one-time pass' to avoid your next death is intentionally just a few syllables off from the phrase 'don’t-know-when,' and that makes me aggressively roll my eyes.
• As mentioned previously, these tattoos were to avoid the Lukhavim attack in 2006.
• Clarice Sackville is revealed to be the Cumaean Sibyl in Hellblazer: Dead in America. This story takes place after Hellblazer: Marks of Woe but before Dead in America, with some liberty taken to smooth out the cliffhanger between the two. I had not read Dead in America when I started this fic. The Sybil in the title was supposed to be Mercury.
• US Senate Subcommittee on Childhood Violence e Hellblazer: Shoot.
• London hospital slayer arc: While John had amnesia, from Reasons to Be Cheerful. Tim was right, both medical records and doctors really do tend to disappear.
• Covered in paint to summon Shade the Changing Man: 2010, Hellblazer: Sanctioned.
• On a train with Swamp Thing: 2016, Constantine: Art of the Deal.
• The poor, poor Mucus Membrane documentary team did not stand a chance: New Castle Calling. Hellblazer #145-146 .
• I’m not intentionally Bruce-bashing. I just think he’s more interesting when he’s capable of making mistakes. It’s part of my way of showing the various ways his kids are surpassing him in their respective specialties. More of the running theme about 'very specific skills' in two chapters.
• Thaumaton is also from Forever Evil.
• 26,000 is a sheer wild guess on my part. There’s a splash panel that’s literally copy-paste of Necro pressing the button, killing his spouses, and resurrecting them over and over. This one page depicted the cycle seven times without stopping and seems to last approximately the amount of time it takes Necro to say the word 'again'. Zatanna later comments that they were imprisoned for ''week's' and there are several other panels that show it going on in the background.
• I wasn’t originally going to make Zatanna secretly old, but there are just too many stories that work better in the timeline if she’s closer to John’s age. In order for the New 52 soul-bonded married trio coven thing to fit John’s timeline, it has to happen in the mid-1970s—making both Necro and Zatanna about 40-50 years older than they usually appear.
• Constantine has only recently started to be shown smoking anything other than Silk Cuts. There was a whole subplot in Hellblazer: Hard Time where he tried every brand available in an American prison to find something else he liked before instigating a riot and burning the whole place down in a nicotine withdrawal instead. This specific brand was—like the earrings and white gloves—very clearly part of the early queer coding on the character. John didn’t suddenly become bi in the 2000s as some woke agenda. He always was. If you don't like it you can Fight Me.

Chapter 37: Contingencies

Summary:

In which Batman has a few things to say on the subject of John Constantine.

John Constantine was smoking a cigarette as he descended the stairs into the Batcave.

"Don't smoke in here," Batman growled without turning, his voice rumbling from a chair behind the Batcomputer.

"Alfred said I could," John replied without apology, smoke curling from the side of his mouth.

"What did you do to him?"

"Nothing! I'm just as confused as you are. Dunno. Maybe he likes Silk Cuts too? I’m keeping it contained, see?" He held the cigarette away from anything sensitive and gave a lazy shrug.

"Hm."

John looked around the cave, taking in the neat rows of uniforms, the oversized penny, the trophies from strange cases, and the fluttering flock of bats up near the stone ceiling.

"Hunh. Synchronicity." 

Batman gave an irritated little twitch. Constantine used that term frequently in his expense reports, but it was inconsistently applied—at least a dozen definitions across a dozen uses. It grated.

"Explain," Batman said.

"Oh. Uh. Bit of déjà vu, I guess?" John squinted. “You ever cross paths with SW Manor?”

Batman raised an eyebrow beneath the cowl. He had, in fact, met the previous generation’s American billionaire playboy philanthropist.

"Once or twice. At parties in my twenties," he admitted.

Back in the late ’90s, Manor had briefly been the richest person in the world by some accounts. Though those accounts probably didn’t include the LexCorp shell corporations, the GDP of Bialya, or Vandal Savage’s literal Mongol horde—the older man had still easily landed in the top ten.

John grinned, a foxish glint in his eyes. "Oooh, a party. I bet Stanley loved you. Rich orphans with matching taste in décor. He’d have gotten handsy. How’d you shake the pervy bastard?"

"I didn’t. He got distracted. And died. Suddenly. Twenty-five years ago."

"Has it really been that long? What did they end up putting as cause of death?"

"Eaten by vampire bats."

John laughed. A loud, sharp bark that echoed in the cave. "Not bullet to the head? LAPD must’ve made a killing in bribe money to hush that one up. Then again, I missed that part. Serves him right."

Batman stiffened. He didn’t like the implication that he and Manor had anything in common.

Stanley Manor had been a billionaire philanthropist whose parents were gunned down in an alley, collected trophies of his conquests, and ran a clandestine criminal network. He had also had an unhealthy obsession with bats and a tendency to make orphaned children disappear.

Just been he didn't like the implication didn't mean it wasn't there.

What unsettled him more was the gap Constantine left in his explanation. The things he wasn’t saying.

A week ago, Batman wouldn’t have followed the subtext. Before reviewing all available documents on John Constantine, this half-referential conversation would’ve seemed cryptic and mysterious.

Manor had been the chief subject in the FBI investigation attached to Constantine’s second death certificate. It was the better documented one. Unlike prison riot, gang shooting, or back alley overdose, this one included an autopsy and witness accounts.

Cause of death: Immolation.

Immolation so hot and fast the accelerant was never determined.

Immolation after a week of “free use” in a very exclusive Los Angeles sex dungeon.

Immolation while kissing one of the richest men on the planet.

Manor had “coincidentally” died in what was reported as a freak bat accident less than 24 hours later.

Frank Turro, the FBI agent who connected the two cases, had been stabbed to death with a hunting spear that same night, while investigating a suspected home intrusion on the Manor estate. His liaison with the LAPD had—out of respect for the dead—entered the illegal taxidermy, magical artifacts, and exotic art found in Manor’s cliffside mansion into evidence for the immolation case.

One glass cabinet in the crime scene photos had proudly displayed an antique clock and a brown trench coat.

Together.

As a set.

Trophies.

The corpse had gone missing from the morgue after three days.

The jacket had gone missing from evidence the next week.

The “Rasputin clock” had vanished a two weeks after.

John Constantine had shown up at his sister’s Liverpool apartment a month later—under an assumed name, wearing the jacket and acting like nothing had happened.

Batman didn’t like the way Constantine's eyes lingered on his display of uniforms and trophies, or the way the wizard’s gaze flicked back to the bats circling the rafters as if tracking a threat.

“Eptesicus fuscus,” 

"Hm?" Constantine glanced over.

"The bats. They are Native to New England.  Insectivores. They were here first. Not some exotic import. They don’t bite."

I don’t bite either, Bruce thought. History isn’t always a loop. Not everything is connected. It’s not always Synchronicity.

The wizard sighed. “I know I’m going to regret this, but—what did Zee have to say?”

Constantine sounded like he was bracing for an axe to fall. Batman hastily reviewed his memory of the Watchtower conversation for anything that might qualify as a compliment.

“She said you clipped the wings of an angel.”

"Archangel." John rolled his eyes. "Twice, if you want to get technical. First time doesn’t count though— that one was off the clock. And Clipped? Is that what she called it?" He laughed, sharp and low. “Like I used pruning shears?”

He stepped closer, eyes suddenly alight “It might have taken a few sinful acts to wrestle the fucker to the ground, but at the end of the day?”

He leaned in towards the Batcomputer. “I used a bloody chainsaw. Kept the heart in a cardboard box and made the snob dance on a string. Ye gods and little fishes, I think I might hate angels just as much as demons most days. At least the demons never claimed to be telling the truth. They’ll lie to you, sure, but angels? Angels lie to themselves.”

He tisked. “I’m not a good person. I know it. Just like I know she said more than complimenting my pruning.”

John studied Batman’s face and seemed to find what he was looking for. He nodded, producing a folded sheet of paper from his coat and set it in the workspace.

“Look. I prepped a little something for you. Contingency plans. In case I go off the rails.”

Batman took the paper cautiously. It was covered in a meticulous dark red circle diagram.

“Why?”

“It’s what you do, innit? Keep contingency plans for the League? Only a fascist wouldn’t want someone watching the watchers.”

Batman frowned. He had a plan for that. He was sure he did. A league member designated as a failsafe—able to counter, subdue, survive and disarm a living nuclear bomb.

Except…

He couldn’t remember who.

“Besides,” Constantine continued, “I’m in your town. Seems polite. Struthe. I’m proud of the spell work on this—it’d be a shame not to show it off.”

He gestured to the page.

“Quick Babylonian history lesson, stop me if you’ve heard it: Billy’s mate, ol’ King Solomon. Invented these sigil-based circle spells I’m always bastardizing. Well, he or that blasted jinn advisor of his did. Some folks even say he invented justice too, but that’s bollocks.”

He jabbed a finger toward the intricate diagram. “Thing about threatening to saw a baby in half? It only works once. When word gets around, it’s not much of a bluff anymore. So Solomon did what he did best. Wrote a sigil. A spell that doesn’t measure maternity of the child, but maternal love of the mother. Or parent, I guess. Inclusive magic and all that.”

He tapped the center rune. “This one’s modified. Tied to me. Written in my own blood, yeah? If you draw a chalk outline and plant this on top, you can summon every person I think of as my kid—and vice versa.”

Batman studied the design, fingers twitching over the edges. “You want me to summon them here for an intervention?”

“No.” John scoffed. “Don’t do it here. That’d be a huge liability. I want you to summon them to a neutral third location and help them hunt and kill me like a rabid animal.”

Batman’s jaw tightened. “You think I can convince your children to murder you.”

“Noooo.” The wizard dragged the word out, clearly amused at Bruce’s slowness. “I think the only reason I’m currently alive is most of them don’t know where I am. Might pull in Danny, though—I fed him a line about keeping me from going evil so it should be fine.”

He sighed and scratched at his neck. “Almost everyone else has already tried. Some of them succeeded. My demon-spawn assassins never got domesticated like yours did. Some died. Others…” He trailed off, shrugging. “I just sort of lost track of ‘em.”

"Who exactly am I dealing with?"

“Assuming it only picks up the living?” John said. “Check the back.”

Batman flipped the sheet over.

On the back, written in messy pencil:

• Mercury Ne Naggin Nawken? Nacken – Jinn-touched Psychic
• Tefé Holland-Arcane – Avatar of the Red and Green
• Maria Const- Spatch= Cambian – House Nergal Assassin
• Noah Ikumelo – London Roadman
• Syder Eldridge – Rightful Heir to the of Crown England
• Gemma Constantine Masters – Harpy Summoner
• Finn Bradley – Irish Trade Wizard

And hastily scribbled at the bottom:

• Danny Fenton – Half ghost heir-apparent of the Infinite Realms

Batman’s eyes lingered on the page, noting the eraser marks and mid-list edits.

“This is your best guess?”

“Yeah,” John said, tone too casual. “Might be a few more ghosts, real ones, not energy-whatnots from the Bleed. Dunno how sensitive it is.”

“This is a powerful group.”

“They are. I adore the little buggers. But don’t underestimate them.” He scratched behind his ear. “Generally speaking, the more human they seem, the more successful their attempt to kill me. Except Noah. Kid’s about as human as they come.”

“He hasn’t tried to kill you?”

“Only the once so far. Apologized right after. It was real cute. I don’t think anyone else has apologized.”

John didn’t mention the weak point.

Letting himself care about Danny jeopardized the plan. Any one of the kids might hesitate—but if Danny didn’t keep his promise and chose to save John instead, he’d pull Mercury and Finn along with him out of earnestness alone.

If it came to an internal fight, John’s money was on Tefé losing patience and reducing them all to a fine red mist.

Maria might survive that.

Technically.

Best not to find out.

“And your other contingencies?”

“This is the main one, but—” John patted his coat and pulled out a small sheaf of paper.

“A song I wrote over a lifetime ago. ‘Venus of the Hard Sell.’ Still working on a new recording. If you can run this through a MIDI player, it’s enough to snap me out of most benign mind control. I’d shake off a Star Conqueror just to chew you out for butchering it.”

Batman skimmed the lyrics. “This is a thinly veiled socialist manifesto accusing Superman of complicity in a broken industrial capitalist system.”

“Yes?” John blinked in bafflement. “I’d never met the bloke but I wasn't wrong. How was I supposed to know he’s not ignorant, just debilitatingly kind and cripplingly polite?”

“It reads like you were two seconds from screaming ‘Eat the rich.’”

“You’re right. Gimme that.”

He took the sheet back and scribbled a hasty coda over the last four bars using a half chewed pencil he pulled from his pocket.

“Da-da-daddum and liiive, da-dum—Free her and… eat… the… rich. There! Ready for the mind-controlling echinoderms.” He handed it back, grinning like a loon.

“Does it mean that much to you?”

John’s smile softened. “I think it might’ve meant that much to all of us. You know how, when everything’s going sideways, the science and engineering always folks kludge together some solution in the field? Duct tape and a spanner and a spaceship kind of thing?”

He tapped the lyrics.

“This is what I do when I've got to do that to myself. If I lose something important, I jam this song in the hole and hold on until I can get it back. It’s not perfect but it keeps me sane. I've never actually had to do it for anything significant but I feel better knowing that I can.”

He paused, then added, “Under the right conditions, you could probably use it as a substitute spell component for my entire soul. It’s not good—but it’s mine.”

Batman glanced up. “Anything else in y̸͙͖̼̫̹̐̉our p̵̛̰͖̤̘͒͑͛o̵͙̰̟̒ͅcket?”

The wizard twitched. He tried to play it off.

“Always. Good policy to work in threes.”

He reached for his pocket… and missed. His hand skimmed the outer edge. He tried again running a finger down the seam but stopping just short of placing his hand in the jacket space. The wizards eyes widened in something like panic. 

He closed them. Breathed in, slow and shaky. Then deliberately reached into the coat and pulled out a small stoppered vial.

It glowed with a deep, flickering orange light.

“A cop-out compared to the first two. Same contingency I gave Manor. Soil sample from Hell. You can kill just about anything with this, so don’t feel obligated to save it for me if you’ve got other Leaguers to spend it on.”

Batman’s eyes narrowed. He had the sudden intuition that this was not the item Constantine was originally reaching for.

“Manor used this to kill you?”

“Eh—” John shrugged. “We parted on mutual terms.”

“So this didn’t cause your immolation?”

“Oh, it did. I just returned the favor.” He gave a dry, joyless laugh.

“Cost me something, too. I lose a little ground every time I have to renegotiate my way out of damnation. Bit like fighting Mxyzptlk—you’ve got to find a new angle every time. Only so many loopholes.”

He gave a shrug so casual it might’ve hurt.

“Combine it with the kid-summoning spell for redundancy if you like. Have someone waiting to snipe my shade on the other side. That should do it. Very permanent.”

Batman’s voice dropped an octave. “Why now? Do you think you could be manipulated in such an extreme way?”

Zatanna had given her take but he wanted to hear it from Constantine himself.

The wizard didn’t answer right away.

“I’m not afraid of losing my mind,” he said finally. “I’m afraid of getting it back. I know what I am. Hell, even my bloody House knows.”

House? The House of Mystery? Just like earlier, he was leaving gaps. Things he wouldn't—or couldn't—say. By the next sentences, Batman thought he could follow along again.

“There was this bloke— Carrow— Back in 2012. Tried to hurt me to get to—” he cut himself off, throat tight. “Tried to hurt someone. He's an alchemist. Was. Was an alchemist. He's dead. Chucked me in the loony bin."

“London Institute for Mental Disorder,"  Batman corrected. That had been in the records too.

“Right,” John nodded distantly. “Not my first trip around the bend, but this one was worse than Astras well endowed terror elemental. Real nasty stuff. I spent some time with a persistent phobia of just about everything. Made Scarecrow look like a pissant. Touch of the ol’ xenomelia.  There may have been some self-harm.”

He rubbed his hand absently over his thumb and the ring of raised white scars that stood out along the entire circumference of it.

“Thing is— to apply a global alchemical effect like that— it’s best practice to remove prior contaminants. He wasn’t gentle about it. I want to believe it was all malicious spellwork but—”

John’s voice faltered.

“That first little bit? The part where I suddenly woke up one day and tried to cave her face in with my bare hands while screaming about how well I know my own mind?” He laughed once, bitter and short. “There’s a decent chance I was sober for that.”

“I’ve worked real hard not to be ever since.”

There was a half-cracked phone in the Watchtower’s lost-and-found that told Batman not to ask who “she” was.

Zatanna Zatara had warned them John Constantine would attack anyone who insulted his wife.

Tiny aborted sparks danced across his fingertips—then vanished as he clenched his fists.

If Constantine was the one insulting Epiphany Greaves, would he be compelled to attack himself? Is that what this was? 

Batman stared at the summoning circle. The music. The vial of hellfire.

He looked at the man who was standing between him and the Bleed half begging him to use them.

He quietly chose not to.

For now. 

Not without very good reason.

---

 

John Constantine practically flew upstairs and called out to the butler,

“Alfred Pennyworth, I need your expertise with a dark and terrible ritual. I assure you the fate of the world may hang on the answer to my next question.”

Alfred blinked owlishly. “Yes?”

“Where do you keep the Nikwax?”

There was a beat.

“You wish assistance with the laundry? I believe I was very clear—”

“The laundry is having a standoff,” John interrupted, defeated. “It moved straight past blackmail and into hostage negotiations.”

He gestured at the coat with a sigh. “At some point, it’s easier for everyone to just give it what it wants.”

Alfred squinted. “Is this a romantic affectation, or is the garment… sentient?”

“The sentience is inconsistent. It’s never managed proper sapient communication but—uh—I assure you it’s at least capable of emotional response—”

He pitched his voice as if speaking to someone else entirely,

"—and being right petty." He accused.

“Very well,” Alfred replied, utterly composed. “Laundry is within my purview. For calming irritated fauna however, I recommend consulting an expert.”

Notes:

references

• Return of the Brian Azzarello run angst: Hellblazer #146–174. The trauma hits different when told from different POVs.
• Stanley Manor was spookily similar to Bruce. That was the whole point of his character.
• Prison riot: Hellblazer #150, Hard Time.
• Gang shooting: Hellblazer #298, Curse of the Constantines, Part 1.
• Back alley overdose: Hellblazer #300, Curse of the Constantines, Part 3.
• Back in Liverpool like nothing had happened: Hellblazer #175, High on Life.
• John sawed the wings off of the Angel Gabriel in Hellblazer #66, Fear and Loathing—but if you remember, I moved Tom King’s Rise and Fall back to the ’90s to preserve my monstrously mutated timeline. This means *technically* the first set of archangel wings he stole would have been Lucifer’s. But as John explained, that probably doesn’t count because, you know—it’s Lucifer.
• The League member designated as a failsafe is currently missing, which might be the least canon-compliant part of this whole fic. Wildstorm characters would not be nearly this easily fridged in their own titles.
• “Struthe” was the John Constantine expletive used in the ’80s. I'm trying not to overuse it.
• Probably not important, but King Solomon’s jinn adviser currently lives inside a corner of Mercury’s head. Hellblazer: Rebirth.
• The foreshadowed pocket diagram from Chapters 12, 15, and 22 is of my own making. Call it Chekhov’s sigil of disastrous family reunion.
• Venus of the Hard Sell: Full lyrics appear in Hellblazer Annual #1. There's a cover by the band Spiderlegs. It’s not my favorite, but supposedly it’s accurate specifically because it’s so bad. I'm self-aware enough to know I want it to be bad—but I want it to be specifically bad in a way that I, and only I, will like.
• Carrow, 2012. John Constantine's actions in Hellblazer #267, Sanctioned, are the linchpin of my entire Epiphany Greaves fanon. Specifically, he accused her of dosing him with a love potion and then punched her in the face repeatedly—only to wake up in a psych ward. It is later explained that he did this because he was dosed by Epiphany's ex but I am skeptical.
• The Jacket has taken Clockwork hostage. It can do this because of its various magic properties established in Hellblazer #283, The Devil’s Trenchcoat.

Chapter 38: Laundry Day

Summary:

In which Damian Wayne has a few things to say on the subject of John Constantine

The Jacket had soaked up about as much demon blood as the Wizard had over the years and followed it up with the splattered remains of the friends who stood too close.

The HIV-infected arterial spray of Davy the teen prostitute.

Lucky Firmin’s lower jaw.

The fishy smell of black-market Mermaid meat.

A viscous purple sludge the Nightmare Nurse insisted was Sin Venom.

He'd even been wearing the thing when he hustled Billy Batson and channeled the raw power of Shazam through it, as daft as that idea had been.

Then there were the metaphysical stains from the dreamspace war with Hunter—bits of the concept of Chas’s brain on the hem. A quirk of magic for his friend to be splattered across a battlefield months before his more mundane death.

There were probably even some things that the jacket remembered and he didn't.

 Ashes of starving children knowingly sent to play in a magic minefield as part of the cold math to reduce the number of mouths to feed and motivate the surviving adults.

An now the bloody thing wouldn’t give up the thermos.

He hated to admit it, but it was time for the slow and careful ritual magic of washing the coat.

---

 

Damian Wayne, Robin, had a very particular set of skills.

Things he knew he was better at than Batman. This was not surprising. He had begun his training younger than his father. His sword forms were ingrained into him like an extension of his limbs. Violence was almost as much his native language as Cassandra’s.

The other, less obvious things he excelled at weren’t things his father had ever seriously pursued—and so, it wasn’t hard to surpass him at them;

While supportive and technically proficient, Batman had no need to master fine arts beyond identification. While kind, Bruce had never taken the time to support a menagerie before Damian prompted him to.

Damian loved each of his animals with the obsessive care and vigilant devotion born of a touch-starved childhood. This was the skill Alfred Pennyworth had asked him to apply.

Damian Wayne was of the opinion that Alfred Pennyworth had mastered just as many particular skills as Batman, strategically choosing to complement his father by tailoring himself to fill the gaps in mastery. It was a system so effective that it had slowly been expanded.

It was the only logical explanation for the sprawling patchwork of siblings. A tool for every task.

Damian Wayne knew he was the best in the world at what he did. But together? He had begun to suspect that together, his family was the best in the world at everything.

That thought made him proud in new and fragile ways he had yet to fully explore.

Alfred had requested Robin’s help for a mission.

They were endeavoring to do the laundry.

The laundry was clearly upset about it.

Among his many skills, Damian Wayne could give anything a bath.

In a corner of the Batcave between the medbay and the showers, there was a sewing room—inasmuch as re-welding torn Kevlar and adjusting the fit of carbon fiber plating could be called sewing. There were benign cleaning implements and exotic ones. High-temperature decontamination tools. Hydrophobic sealants. An ironing board.

And in a hastily chalked spell array on the floor, a frothing washbasin filled with soapy water and a violently animated trenchcoat.

"What type of fabric is this?" Damian had never seen anything like it before.

It was Alfred who answered first. "A relic of a different time. Gannex is a proprietary composite of water repellent nylon layered with wool to preserve interior pockets of air for warmth. The material hasn't been produced in over 40 years."

"It seems highly unethical to wear a garment this sentient," Robin observed, arms crossed, watching as the coat thrashed in the basin like a feral thing.

"It's okay because I don't wear it. Mostly it wears me," John Constantine replied, casually leaning against the doorframe. "Think of it as a symbiosis. If I leave it behind for more than a day or two, the bloody thing gets peeved and goes on a murder spree."

He scratched the back of his neck, half-smiling.

"Got nicked in 2012. Someone tried to dry clean it and—well—it was a mass casualty event. The dry cleaners burned down. Everyone who wore clothes washed from the same batch died. It started driving people insane trying to replace me. Next half dozen or so people who touched it died too. Then we had a little fight which nearly killed me and everyone in the vicinity."

His voice turned warm, fond.

"Poor thing has serious abandonment issues."

Robin arched a skeptical eyebrow. "It's capable of independent movement. Why should it need you?"

"Dunno. It just does." Constantine shrugged. He didn’t mention the power of love, and Damian appreciated the professional courtesy. Damian was of the opinion that the power of love was a lazy answer for people who didn’t want to bother untangling actual magic theory.

He considered the task.

Objects weren’t like people or animals.

Objects had stated purpose from their very conception, and it followed a linear sort of logic that they would generate life to fulfill those stated purpose's. The purpose of a rain jacket was self-evident to Damian.

It protects you from the elements.

He rifled through drawers of scrap materials and pulled out a piece of tungsten and carbon fiber plating. He nearly lost a finger widening the loose stitches on one corner of the hem, but when he gave the coat the old piece of his own chest plate to hold between its layers, the rigid piece of armor quickly shifted—settling near the upper left breast pocket.

Interesting.

He ran his hand gently under the collar and began to speak softly, a repeated litany of compliments, tone low and careful as he brushed cool soapy water against the stain-splattered liner. The coat stilled. It stopped thrashing under his ministration and practically sat up in the washbasin as he applied a first layer of sealant.

Constantine paced nearby like a nervous parent, wringing his hands with visible anxiety. He was unrefined in the way he rocked forward on his heels, then back, jittering as if Damian were conducting surgery or defusing a bomb—not facilitating a bath.

“Your nervous energy helps no one,” Damian said, not looking up. “Go. Take a w̷̤͒alk in t̴̘͋he p̵̭͌a̶͎͒rk.” 

The wizard froze and gave him a disproportionately intense look.

“What did you say?”

“I said you should take a walk in the park.”

“Ah. Well. Alright then. Any particular park you recommend?”

Damian wracked his brain for a sufficiently distant location. “Robinson Park.”

John looked forlornly at the twitching wet canvas. “I’ll just go do that then.”

 

He was already gone when Robin noticed the name sewn into the tag.

Who was Nick N.?

---

 

John didn’t know why he was avoiding talking about Lady Gotham with her chosen representatives.

It just seemed ill-advised. People tended to be unpredictable when you told them they had an outside force living in their head, guiding their actions. You had to be extremely careful with someone under external influence—no telling how they might react if you told them they were acting abnormally.

For now, it didn’t seem to be hurting anyone.

More importantly, Gotham was being chatty. More words than he’d gotten out of her during the last decade of work beside Batman. Proximity, maybe? Or was it another side effect of everyone suddenly commenting on his life all at once?

Either way, he was headed to Robinson Park in downtown Gotham wearing a dress shirt, slacks, and a tie.

In the middle of November.

He began lying to himself about how cold he was without the jacket, and didn’t notice how purple his nail beds were becoming.

---

 

Garfield Logan, Changeling, wasn't in the Batfamily and didn't compare himself to Batman. That didn't mean he didn't have a very particular set of skills too. 

He was an actor. A good one. Not just a sci-fi convention, funny-alien kind of actor—though he was that too. He could take it further. Thanks to the Red, Changeling could tell his body to fill nearly any role. 

So long as the role was green.

Right now, Garfield Logan is doing a very good impression of a soft and sleepy therapy dog. A green one.

The Red was a vicious place—a rushing river of instinct in the back of his head. But Gar was an actor, so he acted like he couldn’t hear it.

Refusing to be a violent animal was his daily act of resistance.

Refusing to use that scarlet well of visceral living instinct to rend and tear.

Refusing to be anything other than what his friend needed in this moment.

Garfield Logan curled up on a steel-reinforced lap beneath a heavy robotic hand and pretended this was comfortable as a movie he had already seen rumbled in the background.

He played the role so perfectly that, for a few hours, Cyborg believed himself soft—

— despite all evidence to the contrary.

---

 

Dick Grayson, Nightwing, had a very particular set of skills—but he’d stopped counting just how many things he was better at than Batman over two decades ago.

At some point, it had just started to make him sad.

Like Damian and his sword work, Nightwing had almost always been the better gymnast, the better martial artist, the better acrobat—for no reason other than he’d started training earlier and had never really stopped. Lately, the gap felt different. Dick wasn't getting stronger or faster.

Bruce was slowing down.

That was okay.

It was sad—but it was also human. People tended to forget his father was human. Those people included his dad.

What upset Dick the most was the gap in soft skills.

Nightwing was, unarguably, the better confidant. The better lover. The better friend. That bar had always been set depressingly low. He might actually be the best team leader on the planet—but comparing himself to Batman always meant confronting the things Bruce never seemed to learn, no matter how many times the lesson was taught.

That was the reason for the secret metric Dick had for knowing he was better. The one skill he actually counted.

Bruce and Alfred had raised Dick.

But Dick? Dick had raised his siblings.

He would never tell Bruce, but the only epitaph Dick Grayson was the slightest bit proud of was World’s Best Brother.

He would never tell anyone.

Deep down Nightwing knew he would never have had to be the Worlds Best Brother if Batman had been anywhere close to Worlds Best Dad.

 

---

 

Batman was still hunched over the child-summoning sigil when Nightwing approached him later that morning, posture stiff with concentration. 

“You've been up since yesterday, you should sleep,” Dick observed, watching him from behind.

“This is important,” Bruce muttered, not looking up.

Dick stepped closer, glanced at the notes—and snorted.

“Oh, I see. You’re jealous.”

Bruce’s eyes flicked up. “It would be strategically advantageous to be able to assemble a team rapidly.”

“Uh-huh. And it has nothing to do with the ability to instantly ensure the safety of every member of said team?”

“That would also be advantageous.”

Dick sighed. That was probably as close to self-awareness as he was going to get from his father today.

“So,” he said, gesturing at the page, “who does this summon?”

Batman flipped the paper, frowning. “Constantine seemed uncertain. Couldn’t even provide names for some of them.”

Dick glanced over the list. “Of course he can’t. Nɐ⟨k⟩ɜn  has no formalized spelling.”

He wasn’t counting, but Nightwing suspected he had also mastered the most languages— in this family, that was fairly impressive.

Anyone could memorize a few thousand words and claim they were conversational. That wasn’t mastery. Mastery meant an understanding of both nuance and cultural context.

Dick knew that true mastery meant puns.

“It’s Roma?” Batman asked. 

“Close, but no,” he corrected, shaking his head. “It’s Cant not Pooker. Means ‘I belong to myself.’ It’s the kind of thing a Traveler might say if you pushed them for a family name and they didn’t have one.”

“Traveler?”

“Migrant minority. Call it a different branch of the same family. They married into the Romani, but many of them identify as racially distinct. Scottish Travelers’ Cant remains an almost entirely oral tradition despite the best efforts of the Scottish government. There's cultural taboo against sharing more than a few key words with outsiders.”

“Hm.” Bruce’s brow furrowed deeper. “Fascinating. And your thoughts on the rest?”

“You know Cambion is a catchall term for demonic halfbreeds,” Dick said, tapping the list. “Nergal is Raven’s cousin—one of the Dukes of Hell. She's mentioned that he and Constantine have been killing each other since before either of us were born, so that’s a pretty easy story to guess at."

"You mean trying to kill each other?"

"No. She made it sound like they had both succeeded at least once, but it's just gossip not hard intel."

Dick continued down the list,

"A Roadman is—”

“— I am aware of that one.”

“Of course you’re up to date on current British slang for ‘streetwise teen criminal,’” Nightwing commented dryly. “What I didn’t know is that there’s a conflicting claim on the British throne.”

“It says English, not British,” Bruce corrected, scanning further down the page. “Rightful makes me suspect something Arthurian. Whoever this Syder is, I doubt Mordred knows about him.”

“I don’t have any insight on the last three,” Dick admitted, eyes narrowing.

“Gemma Masters is his niece—she was in Red Robin’s report. Finn Bradley is an Irish medical doctor who shows up repeatedly as a false positive in the facial recognition searches I’m running. He looks exactly like Constantine at fifty, but the relationship is unknown.”

Batman pondered the sheet. “The real outlier is Fenton. How does someone he came in contact with less than five days ago make the list?”

Nightwing gave his father a long, slightly incredulous look at the total lack of self-awareness—

 

“You tell me, Bruce. How do you look at a kid you just met and decide this one is mine?”

Notes:

references

• Messing with the lore of the Jacket is a great way to piss off the fans, but I'm choosing to utilize both deeply disliked coat-based story arcs.
• First and foremost: the Devil’s Trenchcoat (Hellblazer #283–286). When Gemma stole and auctioned off the Jacket, it got very animated and vengeful. Killed a ton of people. Think MCU Doctor Strange’s Cloak of Levitation levels of sentience. It was cool, but the garment was never shown like that before or after this incident.
• Second, the New 52 established that this is in fact Nick Necro’s Jacket—one that John stole off his corpse the first time Nick died. This action could be interpreted both as a touching tribute to a deceased spouse and a way of showing off who inherited Nick's power.
  John never called himself "king among wizards"—but Nick did.
  A whole lot of very shady people started taking this punk kid a whole lot more seriously when he showed up in a dead warlock's clothes (Justice League Dark #0 “Young Bastards”).
• Beast Boy and Cyborg: best friends for life.
• I had fun researching Traveller’s Cant. GRT is a racial designation used by the British government to refer to nomadic people. That name was chosen by a community summit in the ’90s, and therefore the “G” isn’t a slur in this particular instance.
• “Thieves’ Cant” in high fantasy games, on the other hand, is deeply problematic.
• I did my best to translate into the International Phonetic Alphabet, but I basically could have written Nxxxn instead. “Naggen” seems closest, but that sound halfway between the vocal plosives ⟨g⟩ and ⟨k⟩ is really hard to define. I will be writing this word differently every time it occurs, I refuse to pick a spelling. It might not even come up again, Mercury never needed a last name anyway, I just think 'I belong to myself' is a beautiful sentiment.
• Wikipedia: GRT Summary
• Article 12 youth site
• Gypsy-Roma-Traveller friends hub
• Being a good friend is one of the few things Batman is legitimately bad at. Even if he's briefly depicted as emotionally competent the next writer will inevitably bump him back down to broody loner. He loves his family but I can definitely see them getting worn out by him failing to express his emotions.
• I'm going to be just a little bit lazy and wait to give issue specific references to each kid for if/when they show up. They are each very googleable if you can't wait to find out more.

Chapter 39: Fertile Ground

Summary:

In which The Sprout has a few things to say on the subject of John Constantine.

John Constantine spotted a familiar head of white hair meandering along the frost-covered paths of Robinson Park.

It was November in Gotham—bitter, gray, and sharp-edged—but this patch of wild in the middle of the city was still the greenest place for fifty miles. Not just because the Parks Department had done a decent job, but because at least four different avatars of the Green had thrown tantrums here in the last forty years.

He wondered what all that lingering power had done to the soil. Wondered if the avatar in front of him could feel it. The spot where Swamp Thing had created a jungle back in ’87 still whispered beneath the muddy snow.

“Heyo, Sprout!” he called.

The slim form of Tefé Holland spun with a frown and glare. They looked good, he thought. A casual indifferent aesthetic in the loose linen over shirt and hemp woven bracelets that bordered on grunge. Plant fiber. Plant dye. Probably homemade.

"I have a name."

"Sure do. You've also got a nick name."

"You mean title."

"Nope." He popped the ‘p’ with a grin. "Everyone deserves an affectionate nickname."

Tefé's eye twitched in irritation as they examined their absent family member.

“You don’t call. You don’t write. Why are you here, John?”

“I was in town,” he said lightly, ambling closer. “You know how it is. I’m always wandering around, bumping up in the least likely places. It’s my superpower.”

Constantine smiled and didn't mention anything awkward from Tefe's childhood like kidnapping, forced body swapping, mind wipes, or past murder attempts.

“Right,” Tefé said flatly. The sarcasm laced in their voice somehow managed to warm his heart.

If anyone had the right to kill him, it was Tefé.

Mercury had lost her mom.

Syder had been crucified.

Flynn had been abandoned as an infant.

Noah lost his voice.

Gemma had been raped.

Maria had begged the Devil for the sweet release of death and been cursed to live instead.

Those were all comparatively minor things. 

Tefé? He'd personally pruned and repotted the Sprout into a new body. He'd done it to stop a murderous little kid from daisy chaining loggers together or otherwise giving Cronenberg and Tom Six any new ideas for future films. Like so many of his mistakes it was hard to say that wasn't the right call. It still hurt.

Tefé had suffered.

No wonder a flesh manipulator with near perfect control over their own appearance still didn't feel at home in their skin.

Because it wasn't their skin.

They were quite for a long irritated moment while John thought, as if looking for the right words to fill the space between them.

“You know what I always loved about you, Uncle John?”

“Hm?” He was unaware that they loved him at all and he was desperately trying not to get his hopes up over the sudden "uncle” appellation.

“You piss me off. Like, so so much. But however much you piss me off? It’s nothing compared to how much you piss off my dad.”

He barked a laugh. “That’s mutual.”

“No—really. I think he needs it. He’s a plant person, but he needs to be herded around like a deer. The Parliament of Trees told him to avoid power and the anger it leads to—it's Jedi Council bullshit but he clings to it. No anger. No power. Just peaceful, patient Green.”

They kicked a patch of dirty snow with their boot, gaze flicking to the skeletal trees.

“You though? You cut through all that crap and make him angry. Without you nipping at his roots, he'd probably have put down permanent ones and just turned into a fucking tree decades ago. He nearly did. Spent four years in Brazil staring at the pile of ash where the Parliament used to touch the world. He'd still be standing there if you hadn’t needed him for some mad scheme."

They gestured wildly illustrating the point,

"It's a pattern. He slows down, gets forgetful then you show up. You start an argument. He throttles you. You call him a git and punch him in the face— and then you save the world together. Every. Single. time."

They turned to him, eyes sharp with a strange sort of admiration.

“You press all his buttons, make him feel like shit, but at least he feels something. Then he moves. Uproots himself for you and lumbers off. A cosmic being of pure neutrality—and you always get him to take a side. Usually your side. Do you know how rare that is? He doesn’t do it for me.”

John studied the gravel path. He didn’t have words for that—didn’t think he deserved them if he did.

"Some jerkwad party god accidentally invited him to your surprise birthday, and so he what? Showed up? With gifts? Tefe continued, “I don't think he's been to one of mine since I was 5. —lately don't think he even recognizes me."

Their voice cracked.

"You gave him armor and he wore it. Grafted a strange branch into himself because you asked and he wielded it as a sword. Sometimes I think you're the only reason he's in the JLD. Do you know I heard he told the Justice League that you were his oldest and dearest friend and that they should trust you?”

John winced. He knew that was an exaggeration but not much of one. “I… uh. I blackmailed him into saying that.”

“So?” Tefé shrugged. “It's still true. Most messed-up friendship on the planet—but you're still his only friend.”

“He’s got the whole Justice League Dark,” John countered, shifting his weight uncomfortably. “I’m just his token human from the good ol’ days.”

“Speaking of the old days…” Their voice turned small, hesitant. “Have you… seen my mom lately?”

John frowned

"Not since she was tangled up in that thing with Mercury and the jinn back in ‘23. I sort of faked my death and ran away to get out of it but I hear she's doing better. Frankie might know more.

"I don't want to talk to Frankenstein's monster."

“You should. He and the Bride have been living in the Rot a hell of a lot longer than your mum has.”

“That’s just it.” Tefé’s voice dropped, pained and hesitant. “She’s still rotting. I can’t touch her. If you see her… could—could you give her a hug? From me—*”

They bit the words off at the end and stepped back, stricken at with the realization of who they had asked and how that might sound coming from the Green.

“Never mind. I don’t mean—” the plant back pedaled.

“Ah, sweetheart come ‘ere,” John murmured, stepping forward and folding them into a smoke-scented hug. “It’s okay. You asked. There’s never harm in asking. No promises—but I’ll try, next time I see her. If she doesn’t rip my lungs out first.”

There was a wet chuckle from the vicinity of his tie.

“Where the hell's your jacket? Maybe if you treated yourself better, the lung cancer wouldn’t be so appealing?”

“Left the coat at the cleaners. It wouldn't help anyway. Abby Arcane’s wanted to tear me apart since long before she was Queen of the Black. Honestly, at this point the rotten bits might be the only reason that women doesn’t murder me on sight.”

He placed his cold hands on Tefé’s shoulders and gently pulled back to meet their eyes.

“Besides. There’s a better way. You’re not The Swamp Thing. Hug her yourself.”

Tefé looked away.

“No, seriously, Sprout. You can. You’re so much more than the Green. You’re an avatar of life. Red, Green, and Black—all mixed into the best, most fertile brown soil there ever was. When you get yourself balanced out, when you really believe it—you can embrace the Rot.”

He squeezed their shoulders.

“I believe in you. You just have to believe in you, too.”

Tefé’s voice cracked. “Do you have any idea how scary that is? She burns, John. She burns us. She can’t touch anyone. She can’t touch me.”

“No. Tefé. You are named for the cool waters. She can’t touch you yet. Look at me. Remember the time we kicked the Phantom Stranger’s arse? You’ve fought God’s angels and won. You can do anything.”

“You fought God and won. That’s like, your whole thing. I was just there.”

“Give yourself some credit. I would’ve died.”

“You would’ve gotten better.”

He shrugged, “Maybe. Maybe not. These days? Not so sure.”

Tefe let out another long sigh.

“You in town long?”

“You want to meet up?”

“No. I want to get my friends out of the blast radius of whatever actually brought you to Gotham.”

“Ah—fair.” He grinned ruefully. “Looks like my mess is mostly cosmic bullshit happening between dimensions. I’m squatting in the old Drake estate if you want to swing by the House. Calculate your own minimum safe distance for your geomancers, but I think Gotham’s getting a pass.”

“You know about them?”

John smirked. “Course I do.”

Tefé tilted their head. “Huh. Well, if you're here I think now’s probably a good time to be in California. Terra and Volcana should see the redwoods.”

John gave a skeptical look. “That’s the Ring of Fire,” he deadpanned. “You want to take two teenage geomancers to the Ring of Fire.”

Tefé grinned—truly grinned—for the first time. “We’re the Natural Disasters.”

John laughed. “I guess I better stay outside your blast radius too, then. Don’t wake Jörmungandr," he joked.

“The Norse snake at the edge of the world?”

“You didn't think the globe was circled by a ring of volcanos because of plate tectonics did you? World Serpent’s why I avoid Los Angeles.”

Tefé gave him a sly look. “That’s not what she said…”

John raised a brow, surprised. “Look at you. All grown up and gossiping with cities.”

“Like it’s hard? They won’t shut up.”

“They won’t shut up around us,” he corrected. “We built them. Cities usually avoid talking to the Green.”

Tefé narrowed their eyes. “We? There’s no we. What are you talking about, John?”

“Uh. Oh.” He rubbed the back of his neck, sheepish and afraid he might have pushed things too far. “Constantines. I mean— Kon-Sten-Tyn. Back in the 1500s. The one that was Arthur's nephew. He ended the dark ages by finding a weird sort of balance with the natural world.”

He swept his arms wide, gesturing to the frostbitten trees, cracked walkways, the concrete skyline looming just past the park’s edge.

“He built this.”

“Gotham?” Tefé asked. “Gotham’s not that old.”

“No, that’s not—” He sighed. “I meant cities. The idea of cities.”

Tefé folded their arms, skeptical. “Pretty sure cities are older than the 1500s. Arthurian legend’s older than that too.”

“Cities are, but they aren’t,” he insisted. “Look, the timeline works because all the proper Constantine's cheat. Have I really never explained this?”

He glanced at them, then away, half-expecting a plant to strangle him on the spot out of irritation.

“There’s a spirit at the heart of most major population centers,” he went on. “Formed out of… I dunno, echoes. Bits of thought. People packed too tight together, brushing against each other until the pressure and friction spark something new. A separate sapience. One of our — my —ancestors figured out how to speed up that process.”

Tefé raised a brow.

“That’s why we’ve got so many more now. He figured out how to plant city-spirits.”

“By feeding them?”

He nodded.

“By sacrificing the old places. Think of the most sacred druidic sites— I know you’ve seen a few of ‘em. They’re more than just Green. There’s deep magic there. Ancient timber, sacred stone, tranquil rivers. Places of balance and power. Everything good and right and worth having. People were setting out to destroy all that. Had already started even back then.”

John’s voice had gone low. Reverent.

“Kon-Sten-Tyn figured out how to save a bit of that magic. He folded it into a new type of place. He took the bones of the old world—actual standing stones and sacred groves—and built with them. He taught the cities how to become something dense and living and pulsing with a soul of their own by sacrificing and consuming the magic places. It worked. It's all still here, alive in the deep shadows and back alleys. The rivers flow under pavement. The canopy became the power lines. The stones scrape the sky. An orchard of street signs and traffic lights. It's a jungle out there.”

He looked around at the cracked pavement beneath them, the ivy climbing lamp posts, the frost-withered grass curling around a trash bin.

“He taught London first. Then London taught its neighbors on the continent. Then Europe got a bad case of colonialism and exported that idea across the globe. Some of those places already had genis loci of their own—but after that, they multiplied.”

He gave a small, tired smile. “No two city spirits are the same. Just like no two cites are the same. But they’re all connected. A global urban rhizome of human community.”

Tefé’s frown deepened. “Feels like it’s more City than Green these days.”

John shrugged. “Yeah? And Kon-Sten-Tyn was a murderous tyrant who repeatedly fathered sons for the sole purpose of feeding them to a goddess of blood and hunger to extend his life centuries past when he should have shuffled off.”

He gave them a sharp look.

“It doesn’t have to be good to be true. Globalization is a curse on the world—but it’s still home. Still magic. Even your mum ran for the city when things got rough.”

He turned his gaze back toward the skyline.

“Citys are their own kind of life but they're still people. Cracked and patchy and covered in graffiti—but people. They talk to each other. They talk to me. You too, apparently.”

He smiled. “Say hi to Angela while you’re in California.”

“I… I will.” Tefé sounded dazed. “That’s— that's a lot.”

They took a breath, grounding themself.

“If it’s a different kind of life—does that make you some kind of elemental of the urban? Avatar of steel? Slate?”

John looked horrified.

“Oh gods no. Don’t go lumping me in with your ridiculous color-coded system. I’m not an avatar. I try not to speak for anything but myself. I’m just some bloke who knows people. Some of those people are also cities, nations, rivers and trees, but at the end of the day, we’re all just people. We meet up and share drinks and stories.”

“Again,” Tefé said with a sly grin, “that’s not what Angela says.”

He groaned. “Of course L.A. would kiss and tell.”

“That’s nothing. You should hear what the Red has to say about your sex life.” Tefe teased.

He shot them a sideways glance. “Now you’ve got me curious. What are they saying?”

Tefé raised a hand to their chest and tilted their head, mock-listening.

“Nothing as coherent as words. More like a wall of… appreciative sound. That shark boy of yours is loud.”

John Constantine actually flushed. Pink. Across the nose and ears. It was probably the weather.

Tefé laughed, delighted. They walked side by side through the crisp morning light, breath ghosting in the air.

They turned a corner—and there he was.

Swamp Thing.

The statue commemorating the death of Alec Holland loomed over them, 15 feet of oxidized copper and moss, green and weather-worn. The figure was noble. Immense. The sculptor had caught the sense of the man beneath the foliage.

“I always thought it was weird they left this up,” Tefé said quietly. “He's not dead. It’s been decades since he came back.”

John lit a cigarette and blew smoke from the side of his mouth. “Hazard a guess: Lady Gotham feels guilty about killing him.”

“But she didn’t kill him,” Tefé said, brow furrowed. “The FBI did.”

“He was doing the full Forest Requiem thing,” John muttered. “Got angry about the things they were sayn' about your mom. Cut loose.”

He looked up at the statue, unreadable.

“You wanted to know why he doesn’t let himself get emotional? This is where he did. Built a glorious skyscraper of a body out of living redwood and stomped through Gotham like a bloody kaiju. He strangled the city in roots and vines. She fought back.”

He tapped ash on the walkway.

“He died here because she wanted him dead. The FBI? They were just her weapon.”

Tefé stared at the statue. “I’ve been living here for years but she’s never talked to me. Not like Angela did.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” John said. “I told you, they’re each unique. She doesn’t sit down for tea and banter— because she can’t. She’s too busy living in the Batfamily.”

He glanced at Tefé.

“Sometimes you can hear her, though. Snippets in their voices. Behind their words.”

Tefé shivered. “That sounds creepy.”

“Suppose it is.” He gave a crooked grin. “You should’ve heard Robin send me your way this morning. But it works for them.”

They stood quietly for a moment, listening to the wind rattle the bare trees.

John broke the silence. “Say, Tefé… There’s this joke I told your dad back in the day when he still had a sense of humor. Want to hear it?”

“I guess.”

He took a drag.

“Hear now. How do you baffle a vegetable?”

Tefé didn’t take their eyes off the statue of the impossible ideal they needed to live up to.

“I dunno, John. How?”

They turned and—

 

He was gone.

 

---

 

John Constantine turned the corner, boots crunching softly over frost. He didn’t look back.

He tried desperately not to think about the last time he’d used that line instead of saying goodbye.

Had it been seven months? Eight?

Chas had to be gone by now.

Notes:

References

Tefé isn't the slightest bit surprised by being they/them'd without needing to come out as nby. Obviously Uncle John ✨ Magic ✨

Tefé was the spirit of the Sprout before they were born. "We could be diving for pearls" Swamp Thing #65. Swamp Thing later hijacked John's body without asking first to build a safe place for them to be.

Tefé got repotted into the braindead body of Mary Conway after doing some serious Cronenberg shit to some loggers. I’ve seen panels and read the wiki, but I haven’t read the arc yet.

Mary Conway remembered being Tefé Holland in Swamp Thing (Volume 3) #1 “In Lieu of Flowers” — Mary killed some classmates and melted her own skin off in a fit of body dysmorphia during prom. It’s a very 'Carrie' vibe.

John tracked Swamp Thing down at the pile of ash in Brazil and irritated him into saving the world in Hellblazer #184 “The Wild Card.”

The ghost of Christmas-never-was threw John a 40th birthday and invited Swamp Thing. He didn't know it was Johns birthday and hadn't brought a gift, but he grew some phenomenal weed. Hellblazer #63 “Fourty.”

John gave Swamp Thing a branch he stole from the Garden of Eden and convinced him to use it as a wepon in Hellblazer: Staring at the Wall.

John blackmailed Swamp Thing into vouching for him with the Justice League in Rebirth: The Poison Truth Part 1.

The Poison Truth was six issues long and it's what I keep referring to as “The thing with the jinn.”

In the background of Justice League Dark: War for the Books of Magic, Constantine has a pin board with theories about the other JLD members. He theorized that Frankenstein’s monster is animated by a relationship with the Rot. Not sure if this was ever confirmed, but it's cool and I like it.

Tefé is worried that they just asked John to initiate intimacy on behalf of the Green and this could be triggering given the circumstance of their birth. John is trying to explain that it was never the act that was the problem, but the consent.

Tefé and John Constantine kicked the Phantom Strangers ass by reflecting the echo of the words of creation back at him, according to the wiki — but I haven’t actually read it.

Kon-Sten-Tyn is from Hellblazer Annual #1. He was a tricky bastard and will get mentioned again in a different context next chapter.

Jörmungandr = The Ring of Fire is a personal mythology fanon and unsupported by hellblazer canon.

“Orchard of street signs and traffic lights” is a direct quote from Swamp Thing #52. Credit to Allan Moore

Lots of conceptual avatars running around the Hellblazer canon, but John only ever sleeps with Angela in the City of Demons movie. Reminder for people taking recommendations from the author note: the movie City of Demons is based on the comic book All His Engines, where John goes to LA to save Tricia Chandler. The comic book City of Demons is about Constantine’s demon blood acting like a bloodborne pathogen and spawning a terrifying demonic hive mind. Completely different stories, same name. Yes, the freaky demon blood will come up again.

Constantine’s relationship with King Shark was a one-off joke in the Suicide Squad animated movie. I think we’ve had canon confirmation since then, but I’m not sure. I just like the idea that Nanaue is an agent of the Red making him the exact mystical opposite of Alec Holland — and that’s probably therapeutic in a deeply messed up way.

Abigail Holland-Arcane fled to the city when she came up on Sodomy charges in Louisiana. She was found and tried in Gotham but refused to present her relationship status as anything other than fully consensual. Swamp Thing attacked the entire city and the city fought back. Batman got the charges dropped by pointing out what a slippery slop it was to start rigidly defining human as a relationship prerequisite and that maybe they should bring in Lois Lane next. Despite dropping the charges, Alec was still assassinated by the FBI on the courthouse steps. Afterwards this statue was erected in Swamp Thing #55 “Earth to Earth.” Batman said a few words at the memorial service.

The “baffled vegetable” joke is from Swamp Thing #51 “Home Free.” It has a callback in Hellblazer: Black Label #1 “Makes of Woe,” and then was used three more times in Hellblazer: Dead in America. The second time the joke was used John had just had his big blowout argument with Chas in the hospital — psychically.

Chas never actually woke up from his medically induced coma.

He was and is a “vegetable.”

Chapter 40: Rightful King

Summary:

In which the One True King has a few things to say on the subject of John Constantine

When Tim had headed to Amity Park, he’d packed his Red Robin uniform and a spare set of clothes for Alvin Draper but nothing suitable for the office.

Earlier that day before the rest of the house stirred, he had found CEO Drake-Wayne’s bespoke Dormeuil suit laid out on the edge of a bed in a room unnervingly similar to Timothy Drake’s childhood bedroom.

That was creepy.

There had also been coffee and a bagel.

Creepy was okay.

A banging sloshing sound kept coming from the locked room two doors down.

It was really good coffee. 

Tim decided to focus on the task at hand. He could be bribed into accepting creepy.

 

---

 

Hours later Danny, Sam, Tucker, and Jazz were having the worst day possible.

Against all expectations, it turned out that WE corporate culture was boring.

Sure, it had seemed fun at first—there was a flash of excitement when they’d first seen Tim, completely unrecognizable in a tailored suit, calm and brisk as he called a driver and offered a tour. His posture had shifted subtly—he didn’t walk, he moved with intent. He introduced them to HR with a practiced smile and was immediately swept away into the vortex of corporate minutia: handshakes, phone calls, and a carousel of eager professionals in business casual trying to impress the youngest CEO on the West Coast.

The novelty had worn off fast.

The HR team had been at a loss—“culture fitness check” wasn’t actually something their internship program did and the head of the program hadn’t expected to interact with new recruits until June.

As wonderful as a behind-the-scenes tour would have been, none of them had completed the necessary security checks and the he one person who could’ve vouched for them was Busy.

So, they’d been plopped into an unused meeting room and subjected to corporate training videos for the entire morning.

By the time noon came and went, it was obvious Tim wasn’t able to peel himself away. When Jazz finally demanded a break for a late lunch, the group was directed to a nearby food cart pod—and they mutually decided just to not to go back.

Back in the meeting room, the HR representative overheard the conversation as they left and was quietly relieved.

---

 

“HEY, CONJOB!”

A green-haired wall of muscle and leather pointed animatedly across the food cart pod—yelling, unmistakably, at John Constantine.

Danny, Sam, Tucker, and Jazz turned and began weaving their way toward the familiar face.

“Guys, guys!” the man shouted, waving both arms above his head like semaphore signals. “This is the man I was telling you about! Legendary front man my dad used to roll with!” His scruffy friends seemed unimpressed.

“I dunno,” a long-haired blond, sipping a coco in the winter air mused, “he doesn’t look much older than you, Syd.”

“Maybe he, ah... liked ‘em young?” A balding man added with a smirk.

“Ew. Shut up, George.” came the immediate, flat reply.

“Syder!” John finally realized he was being yelled at as the punk reached him. “Where’ve you been all these years?”

The grin that answered could’ve powered a small city.

“Oh, you know—alive in the hearts of men.”

John raised an eyebrow at the phrase and his shoulders tensed minutely with dread.

“So, how’s the old man?” he asked.

“Wow, you have been gone a minute, He’s dead.” Syder replied, ruefully.

Johns face fell in on itself, but the Syder continued cheerfully as if trying to brush past grief.

“It’s okay—he’s supposed to be. You know how it is. You start to seep into a place and everything becomes codependent. It got worse as he got older. Never quite as deep as Map of London, but still… he was sick for years. Died about ten minutes after Queen Elizabeth.”

John’s face twitched. “That’s—I'm sorry I missed it.”

“Don’t be. You were right where he wanted you to be. On the front lines. King and Country and all that. I don't think there was a moment in the last three decades when he didn't know where you were. Do I get to say thank you for your service, or is that too awkward?”

The tone was too light for words that heavy. 

“Wait,” Danny interjected from John’s elbow, finally catching up. “You know Syder Eldridge? The drummer from Dumpty Humpty?!”

The wall of muscle turned, beaming down at them.

“He sure does! Uncle Conjob here gave me all the childhood trauma a musician needs to succeed.”

“Er—ah—” John Constantine looked like he was trying not to choke.

“I spent three weeks as a Trojan horse in Hell when I was six!”

“That’s not—” John started to clarify.

“Alistair Crowley was there!”

“Hey now—”

“That’s right. He fed me a human head when I was eight!”

“That was his idea—”

“It most certainly was not!”

“Not you. The head. Bran the Blessed. The cannibal soup was his idea.”

The drummer shrugged. “Either way, I supped from the Holy Grail and got to watch this fine specimen make out with King Arthur.”

John’s jaw moved, but no words came out.

“You remember all that?” he finally managed.

“My sister remembers all that.”

“Your—? She wasn’t even born yet.”

“You fed my family the still-living head of the first King of England. Mum was pregnant. What did you think was going to happen? You absolute bellend! You ever read Dune? That’s got a pretty accurate depiction of what happens when you feed a pagan god to a pregnant woman.”

"Anyway—" he turned to Danny, placing one massive hand on his thin shoulder and leaning down to make intense eye contact—

“Uncle John’s a good man," he said. "Just don’t listen to him, emulate him, follow his instructions, accept food, drinks, or hospitality, or generally interact with him beyond a casual conversation. You should be fine!”

The man was grinning as he said it. Danny grinned back, fearless.

Jazz looked like she'd eaten a lemon.

“Oh. Hell,” John muttered. “There’s two of ‘em.”

---

 

After some excited introductions the groups scattered to make their orders, drawn by the magnetic pull of sizzling meats and novelty fusion cuisine.

Syder pulled John away and guided him toward the beer garden tucked into a quieter corner of the courtyard. He half-hauled the underdressed man into a seat near one of the outdoor heat lamps. He pressed a dark beer into a too cold hand with casual force and pinned a blue wool scarf around his neck with some kind of brooch.

John couldn't see the pin without taking it off, it was too close to his face.

Syder finally flopped down across from him. —without ever actually mentioning that John wasn’t wearing a coat in November.

“Cute kid,” Syder observed as Danny devoured a gyro several tables over while Sam and Tucker chatted animatedly with the rest of the band. Jazz was doodling something on the back of her hand and absently dragging her finger through the condensation of her cup. “He’s gonna grow up to be one hell of a place someday.”

John squinted over the rim of his glass. “You think?”

“Sure,” Syder said simply. “If he makes it that far.”

John winced and changed the subject, desperately avoiding the boundary between idle speculation and prophecy. “So. Ah. How’s your sister?”

“We’re close— but she got scary. We moved to Abiton when she was a few weeks old. Went native. Practically a changeling.”

John snorted. “Lucky break, that. Can’t imagine a kid saddled with that mouthful of a name having an easy go in the British school system. Ivy-Mae Palace Eldridge. Was your mother high?”

Syder’s grin was sharp. “That’s not fair. You know she was. Probably on your drugs, too. Besides, Ives shortened it. Dropped the family name to avoid the appearance of favoritism.”

“But she kept Palace?” John scoffed. “How the hell is that distancing her from the royal family?”

Syder shrugged, easy. “Like I said—she’s naturalized. Fey names are just like that. She’s at Trinity now, on a library science scholarship. I think she might be looking for you.”

John groaned, leaned his head back against the post of the heat lamp. “Great. Head Librarian Ahms again. One more thing.”

The pints were half-empty before Syder asked, casually:

“Say, John?”

“Hm?”

“Got a question for you. Been burning a hole in my head for a while.”

John was only just realizing how cold he'd been before because of how warm he felt now.

“You want to know why you’re the King of England?”

“No,” Syder said, shaking his head. “I got that one figured. Read a ton of Arthuriana in my teens. Kinda had to. I get that I’m a direct descendant and all, but… what I can’t figure out is why I’m the Rightful King and you’re not.”

“Come again?”

“You gotta wrap your head around the linguistic drift and the complete lack of standardized spelling,” Syder began, speaking now with the clear cadence of someone who’d researched this like it was for a thesis. “But the lineage is obvious. Arthur didn’t have a heir, not a legal one anyway. He passed the throne to his nephew— Kon-Sten-Tyn. Go back a few more generations and there’s a common ancestor: King Custitinne, father of Pendragon. From there it’s a short Welsh genealogy straight back to our friend the soup, the first king, Bran the Blessed.”

He pointed at John with the remains of his beer.

“Your whole lineage is actually a whole lot shorter and more direct than mine, ‘cause of how many of you tricky bastards lived unnaturally long lives. Plus, you’ve got the ties to Roman, Byzantine, and half a dozen Eastern European royal bloodlines too. If anyone could challenge me for it, it’d be you. So I ask again—why aren’t you the King of England?”

“Sorry mate. I don’t have the qualifications.”

“Qualifications?”

“Mostly, you got to be dumber than a rock.”

“Excuse me?” he asked flatly.

“You heard me. Rich was the most loveable idiot I ever shagged—but he was still an idiot."

He sighed

"But you’re right— that’s only part of it. Mostly it’s Arthur. My ancestry’s got everything except the one guy who matters. No one wants the direct descendant of the One True King’s first cousin. No one actually cares about over a dozen generations of easily sunburned pasty white bastards, or Bran the Blessed, or any of the druidic origins of the divine-right-to-rule nonsense. It’s too complicated."

He leaned forward emphatic.

"People just want the story. The Sword and the Stone and the Wizard pulling strings."

He exhaled slow and tired. “Y'er dad made the right call cutting me off the moment he noticed a puppet master messing with his family.”

“Didn’t you kill Merlin?” Syder asked, half-curious, half-accusing. “We should’ve been safe from his manipulation. You saved us.”

“Yeah, I killed Merlin—for a moment. Next to impossible to really kill a story like that. Put him down for a few decades before he popped up again. Thing is I pulled your dad’s strings to do it. Put your whole family in an impossible situation.”

Syder stared at him.

“You think I didn’t notice you killed Merlin and then killed him again thirty years later? He was walking around for less than a week. Still feeling rather safe and protected over here.”

“Of course I killed him again,” John rolled his eyes, like it was obvious. “He invaded Atlantis. Do you have any idea how hard it is to have a nicotine addiction in Atlantis?  I needed to get out of there.”

He sighed again, still leaning forward, elbows on knees. “That’s not the point. I made the whole lot of you dance the first time, didn’t I?”

Syder looked like he was about to object, but John didn’t let him.

“You were literally crucified, Syd. You were eight. I was out of options, and I couldn’t help myself so I sent you and your parents directly into a trap with nothing but a hearty meal and a hunch that I could get any of you out again. You survived despite me, not because of me. That’s the reason you’re the King and I’m not."

He looked at the musician with regret and pride in equal parts.

"You’re a good king. I hope you know that. Sounds like you’ve got this all figured out. Music can do amazing things. Stay on tour. Live in the hearts of men. Change the world from there—and you don’t have to risk seeing me ever again.”

Syder’s whole demeanor went stony. With a frown on his face, he suddenly seemed very large. He was quite and still for several seconds as he choose his words.

“You don’t get to do that,” he whispered, “Not after all this time. Not to me. I’m not eight anymore. I’m not my father either." There was something deep and threatening in his voice that John had never heard there before "This magic is different for every place that ever was, but on my side of the pond?"

"The King is the Country and the Country is the King.'"

"So you see I’ll be calling on you whenever I like, Uncle John. Never forget—"

"I’m not just English—"

"I am E̵̽̌ͅǹ̴̯̮̬͒gland."

The statement resonated with an ancient authority but it came and went in an instant only to be replaced with half a sob, no less powerful than the words that came before,

"I’m England and I m̸̪̯̓iss ̷̲̯̼̍͊y̷ou. So whatever other titles you pick up or inherit, whatever baggage you’ve got weighing you down?"

He shook lime green bangs and tears pricked at the corners of his eyes.

"I’m sure you’re headed straight into some shit again. But however bad the next few days or weeks or years get— you’ll always be in my court and you’ll always have a seat at my table.”

“The King is the Country?” John deflected. “You know that’s a French quote, right? And I thought you said you studied Arthuriana? Only the Americans think the wizard belonged at the table.”

The sunny, vapid grin slid back into place like it had never left. Suddenly Syder Eldridge was Green and Pleasant again.

 

“Well,” he admitted with a slight shrug, “maybe you have a point about qualifications. Maybe I’m just dumber than a rock.”

 

Notes:

References

During the Paul Jenkins run Hellblazer #89-128, John became reacquainted with Richard Eldridge — the lead singer for the punk band 'The Fatal Gift' which used to play many of the same venues as 'Mucous Membrane.' Rich was hard of hearing from his time with the band, still dyed his hair bright colors, and continued to follow the punk scene. He was also kind of dumb. He encouraged John to reconnect with those old acquaintances, trusted him to babysit his kid, and generally succeeded in briefly convincing Constantine he had friends and community.

It wasn’t explicitly a physical relationship, but in Best Version of You, John said he learned BSL while in a relationship with a Deaf man. Rich was in a committed relationship with Syder’s mom at the time and still had some hearing, but I really think 'poly-unicorn/dragon' is a valid fan theory for at least three of Constantine's past relationships. They were all very close friends, and I choose to believe he was in a relationship with both of Syder’s parents before eventually dating a reporter named Dani.

In Last Man Standing, Rich was revealed to be the King of England. John tricked him into retrieving the Holy Grail. The “knowledge of creation” in the “cup” turned out to be a talking head in an iron box. The now-empty box had a cameo in the House of Mystery rage room.

Giving “knowledge of creation” to your friends is a great way for them not to want to be your friends anymore. Paul Jenkins, like so many Hellblazer writers, ended his run by burning all of John’s friendships and leaving him broken and alone. Again.

We last see these characters at the pagan naming ceremony for Ivy-Mae Palace Eldridge. In Hellblazer #128 After John holds her, her father informs him that John is a dangerous person to be around, that he now knows he has responsibilities in Abaton, and that the family is moving to Faerie. This is the only time Ivy-mae is fully named but it is her name.

These particular friends are sort of unique in Hellblazer canon because — while betrayed, tortured and deeply traumatized — none of them actually died. (Eating god-king soup apparently gives you a temporary healing factor. It hurt like hell but Merlin wasn’t able to do any permanent damage to his hostages.)

Merlin attacked Atlantis in JLD: The Great Wickedness. In the comic book he actually escaped but I'm killing him off in Atlantis because John Constantine with a bubble spell on his head is the stupidest he’s ever looked outside of the comedy title Section 8: Sixpack and Dogwelder. It might even be dumber than Distorted Illusions. I just can’t take him seriously underwater.

Rich was always dyeing his hair bright colors — green, orange, purple, etc. I like to think his kids would too. Ivy-Mae is so magically saturated that her hair might just do it on its own, like the Mary Sue I'm desperatly trying to keep her from becoming.

 

Because we haven't heard from Syder or his family since 1998 it's largely my own embellishment kill off his father to make him the full Avatar of England.

Chapter 41: Stench

Summary:

In which Traci Thirteen has a few things to say on the subject of John Constantine.

“Shit.”

Syder stared at his phone in irritation. “We’ve gotta run. Management calls—we’ve got another test run of the new mechanical egg prop this afternoon.”

John and Syder had eventually finished their drinks and wandered back to the main group. The drummer had launched into enthusiastic praise to Amity Park, claiming—loudly—that it was the only venue he’d ever played where the drum kit had turned into a spider. He had promised a behind-the-scenes experience sometime in the future, exchanged numbers, and generally melted the starry-eyed teens into little puddles of fandom.

He glanced at the kids still clustered nearby.

“You lot want to meet up later? Karaoke at Noonan’s tonight?”

“Sure, sure,” John muttered, mostly to himself.

John found himself humming as he offered his own hasty goodbyes, but the tune caught in his throat mid-step. He stopped short, turned, and leveled an accusatory glare at Syder.

Hands shot up in innocence. “Hey, don’t look at me like that,” Syder said, defensive but smug. “If you’ve got a song in your heart, it wasn’t me that put it there.”

“Sure you didn’t,” John said, voice dripping with skepticism.

“I’m not complaining about it,” Syder added, softer. “Means something, coming from you.”

John Constantine watched him stroll away with his band, quietly singing the lyrics to the song from the night before to himself under his breath—

“I~ vow to thee, my country… da-dada-dum… above…”

His mind wandered to Rich Eldridge—beautiful, insane, half-deaf Rich—laughing like a maniac while strapping himself to the roof of a moving vehicle because he thought Eddie the Eagle would've.

“En-tire and whole and pe~rfect—”

Good King Richard the Punk.

“The ser-vice of my lo~ve.”

 

---

Nearly a thousand miles away, someone else picked up the next verse.

“His fort-ress is a faith-ful heart”

Ivy-Mae Palace’s voice floated gently across the room and directly into Agent Gorginia Snow’s last frayed nerve.

“And all his pa-ths are pe~ace.”

“You’re butchering it,” Agent Snow growled.

“Hm?” Ivy looked up, all wide-eyed innocence.

“Verse two of ‘I Vow to Thee, My Country’ uses female pronouns.”

“It’s verse three,” Ivy corrected, unbothered, “and has it occurred to you I might be singing about a different place?”

“I’ve spent forty years in the British Armed Forces. It was written about Britannia. Britannia is feminine.”

Ivy wrinkled her nose. “Britannia is fine but she is made of many places. Some of them don’t even like each other. The poem was written about Heaven. The music was written about Jupiter. We’re in Illinois. You’re lucky I’m not doing the Mormon version.”

“It’s not right.”

“It’s Thaxted. If you’ve got a problem with variations on the work of Gustav Holst, I’ve got bad news for you about Star Wars.”

I wasn't wasn’t about the music. Not really. Gorginia could admit that much.

It was about the glamour.

Ivy-Mae projected an image of herself in white, with dark skin and darker hair. They sat side by side in the waiting room of a drab municipal office, looking like sisters, and it was so incredibly infuriating.

Casually changing the lyrics to the memorial hymn of the UK military just made it worse.

Like every facet of Gorginia’s cultural identity—her clothing, her patriotism, her history—was a costume or a toy in the hands of some childish alien. The only thing she had left was her sexual preferences, and Gorginia had a feeling even that was only a matter of time.

By the time Agent K finally agreed to meet both of the Women in White, Agent Snow was already fired up and ready to spit poison.

---

 

Jasmin Fenton placed a can of cola against the wooden picnic table. It left a ring.

She set it down again a little to the left. Another ring.

She slowly worked her way around the edge of the first one. Five more circles, evenly spaced, met at a point in the middle. She wiped around the outside of the original circle, leaving only the marks inside it.

The symbol from the book. Jasmine’s witches’ ward. It even looked a little like the flower.

She’d just finished tracing it onto the back of her hand with a felt pen she’d appropriated from WE when she looked up and finally noticed John had come back.

“Nice poppy pin.” She observed.

The wizard looked down at the scarf he was wearing— then whipped his head around toward the man who’d given it to him.

Syder had already left with the band.

“I miss Remembrance Day once and he shows up out of nowhere to guilt trip me about it.”

“Memorial Day’s in May?” Jazz offered.

“Americans. I swear.”

John tugged at the pin. “We do poppy pins the first half of November, in remembrance of those who served in armed conflict. There’s a poem. It’s performative, but it really does make settling the ghosts of restless vets easier for a week or two. Gone but not forgotten.”

He kept trying to get the pin off.

“So your friend gave you the scarf? With the pin he’d been wearing?” Sam asked. “That doesn’t sound so bad.”

“It’s not early November. It’s the 18th. At this point it's practically an invitation. I’m so tired of psychic impressions from someone else’s war. Feels like every few years I hit a dark patch and get a ride-along with some poor Tommy.”

He exhaled through his teeth.

“Nicest thing about being cursed to live in New York in the twenty-teens: for about a decade, all the fights were real and for the most part no one tried to make me live through their personal version of Hell. Just—y’know—literal Hell.”

“I don’t think you need to worry about it in Gotham, either?” Jazz said. “Americans do poppies, daisies, and retired stars, but they're not as big a thing over here.”

She was right but it wasn’t just about the ghosts and their soft spots in time. It was the way Syder had talked about the things he'd done—

'Thank you for your service.'

Like he’d served.

John had experienced both World Wars, Vietnam, Tanzania, Indian occupation, British and American Civil Wars...

But he hadn’t served. Only witnessed.

He’d saved the world a few times—helped save a few worlds, even—but that was different. He hadn’t done any of it for Queen and Country.

He’d done it for himself.

He gave up on the pin and looked down.

“A hexafoil? Where’d you pick that one up?”

“The House.”

“Mmm.” He squinted at the back of her hand, puzzling over it. “It’s a general apoptotic sigil, but I don’t actually know how it’ll interact with—”

He trailed off, then called over; “Hey Danny. Overshadow your sister.”

“Uh— Okay? Is that okay, Jazz?”

Jasmine Fenton’s eyes lit up. 

“It’s an experiment.” Danny saw a disconcerting glimpse of their mother in her smile.

“Alright. If you’re sure.”

He looked around the public space, then walked around the table and leaned against her.

“Uh, Danny?” Jazz asked. “What are you doing?”

“I was trying not to be too obvious about it.”

“But—you’re like, real solid?”

Danny leaned harder.

“Ow?”

“It prevents overshadowing?” Tucker asked.

“Apparently.” John shrugged.

“It prevents magic?” Sam leaned in fascinated.

“No. Just certain flavors of magic. Usually malicious witchcraft.” he clarified.

“Oh wow.” Tucker held out his hand for the sharpie. “Do me next.”

“Careful,” John warned. “Protective sigils are the kind of thing you only want to wear if you’re certain it’s not going to trip up the people around you.”

“You think it might?”

“Well, no. That thing’s practically the definition of passive and benign. I just seem to find myself on magic-using teams lately, and I don’t like risking shutting out allies anymore.”

“So what’s stopping someone from possessing you?” Danny asked.

“The smell, mostly.”

“Tobacco?”

“No. The smell under that. It’s hard to describe. Why don’t you just give it a try?”

Danny tried the same casual lean against John. It was almost a hug before he slipped sideways through the man’s skin and toppled out the other side.

Danny didn’t get up.

“Kid?”

Danny groaned and rolled over on the crushed gravel, clutching his stomach.

“What the hell—? You—you’re—” His eyes were watering. Snot dripped from his nose. “You are so GROSS.”

“That’s what the last guy said.”

“What was that?”

“About a hundred years of terrible life choices. I told you. It stinks.”

“That wasn’t a smell. That was so far beyond smell. There were textures. And sounds. And patches. And holes. Like someone tried to sew a quilt out of the fumes from a Nasty Burger dumpster fire.”

“Sounds about right.”

“Are you okay?” Danny asked, still curled up.

“Are you?” John countered. “I work with what I’ve got but I’m upright, and you’re still on the ground.”

“I need a breath mint or something.”

Constantine reached for his pocket and frowned when it was perfectly normal and contained only the things that would fit in it.

He tapped out a cigarette and held it toward the kid.

“Ew. No. I don’t smoke.”

“Why do you think I started? It’s like a herbal smudge for the sinuses. Tobacco cuts through most magical flavors. Got real tired of brimstone in my twenties.”

Danny seemed to be considering it.

Jazz interjected with a very pointed: “No thank you,” and snatched the cigarette from John’s hand.

“I’ll buy you a candy cane.”

John shrugged and looked at Sam—the kid who hadn’t been nearly so hung up about it. He understood the hazards of smoking but it wasn't like anyone developed an addiction on the first try.

“Suit yourself. See if you can beg some condiments off the taco truck while you're at it. Peppermint and lime is another good combo for this type of thing."

"That sounds disgusting." Danny pulled a face.

"Is it more or less disgusting than the aftertaste you've currently got?"

He looked thoughtful. "Peppermint and lime would be great."

 

---

 

Wonder Woman was drinking at the Oblivion Bar.

It was still a little frustrating how long it had taken to earn her seat in the pub-shaped pocket of reality frequented by the magic community.

She was magic.

She had magic powers, and magic clothes, and magic tools. She’d ridden a pegasus as a little girl. She knew gods.

But the magic community? Those mortals who walked the edges of the shadows? They hadn’t been impressed. Not at first. Not until she and her team had started making a difference.

Now she was a regular.

The bartender was a young Asian woman named Traci Thirteen. Her whole coven—the Sisterhood of the Sleight of Hand—had burned to death at table three in 2018.

Traci had come back to work anyway. She’d even picked up more shifts. 

She really was quite good at listening.

Right now, she was listening to Diana’s Constantine-shaped dilemma: the meeting in the Watchtower, the call to action from one of the world’s most promising young psychics… and more importantly, the things Zatanna had said after—

"Don’t you have a lasso that's, like, the exact tool for this?"

"He’s an ally, Traci."

"Yes? That would be why— ugh. You people. I swear, it’s like you think the bartender doesn’t have ears. He already asked."

"What?"

"Well~ not about this, but you know. About the other stuff."

"What ‘other stuff’?"

"The stuff with Giovanni Zatara."

"That was different."

"Was it?"

Traci leaned on the bar. “Zatara had him stuffed full of secrets and compulsions. All those little plans from beyond the grave, remember? John and Zee fought about it. Sat right here. He told her precisely as much as he could. Maybe even a bit more than she wanted—but she kept pressing. Then, when it wasn’t enough, he asked after you. Said that if she wanted the truth so much…”

Diana's lips pulled into a puzzled little frown. “She never told me.”

"And he couldn’t. That’s the problem."

Traci began aggressively wiping a section of the bar with a damp rag.

“Fucking Giovanni, I swear... name me a wizard who isn’t a master of manipulation.”

“Zatara’s actions saved the world,” Diana replied. “He may have been deceased, but his foresight saw us through the last half-dozen magical crises. He saw what was coming and gave us the tools we needed.”

“Wow. You’ve been hanging out with Detective Chimp too long. You’re not supposed to be the pragmatic one. Tools? Listen to yourself."

Traci gave her a look.

"If you need to trawl the loony bin for someone soft enough in the head to carry your toolbag, your master plan might be just a teensy bit evil. Give me one good reason he couldn’t have just written a letter.”

“Our enemy was nigh-omnipotent?”

“Okay? Then leave your messages with your fucking heir. The only reason to find someone else is because someone else would be more disposable. I think that might be the worst part.”

She didn’t stop, it was like she'd been waiting years to espouse on the subject.

“John’s a clever motherfucker. There’s no way he didn’t notice. That could’ve been something real—something like a father-son relationship. Instead? Giovanni shoved his convoluted plans into his wobbly brain with a compulsion not to mention it, then sent him right back to the dump where he found him.”

She narrowed her eyes.

“The way I see it, this Epiphany person isn’t doing anything someone else hasn’t pulled before."

Traci crossed her arms. “Like—I really don’t get why you’re so concerned all of a sudden. You should’ve been concerned years ago. I’m fuzzy on the timeline, but I’m pretty sure Constantine was out of the asylum, dating Zee and her boyfriend within a year of the most powerful Wizard on Earth making it crystal fucking clear how important it was to keep her alive.”

Her voice lowered.

“Is that consent? I mean, Christ. Do you know what his last fucking words were?”

There it was again.

Everyone in the magic community knew what had happened to the first attempt at a magical superteam. They'd lost half the roster to spontaneous combustion while holding the line against The Brujería at Wintersgate Manor.

Apparently, despite the fact that Diana was magic, was leading the current magic team, and had a close working relationship with most of the survivors of that night, Traci Thirteen still wasn’t sure if 'everyone' included her.

Traci hadn't even been born yet.

“He said, 'Constantine... If you do not deliver my daughter safely from this place, my shade shall hound you through all eternity.'” Diana murmured into her glass. “Then he went up in flames like his friend Sargon had moments prior. He was holding Zatannas hand. No one broke the circle.” 

Traci let out a slow breath.

“Yeah. What a mindfuck that must have been.” Then she continued. “You’ve got a hotline to some goddamn Truth. I say use it. Can’t think of anyone who’d benefit more from some forced introspection. Owe it to him, even.”

Diana closed her eyes.

“That is... a wise course of action. Thank you for your counsel, Traci— but if he truly asked for my help why was I not told?"

The bartender looked deeply uncomfortable. She glanced both ways down the empty bar and leaned in until their faces almost touched.

"This is just rumor okay?" She whispered. "It's rumor and you didn't hear it from me."

"My dad— Doctor 13? Well, he said, that Doctor Occult, said that Rose said, that Mindwarp told her a secret he found during a mental probe the last time he fought John."

Traci checked the bar again.

"You got to understand. Literally everyone was hurting after Thaumaton. I— I got off light. Hadn't even hit puberty. Spent most of it in a cage and I still get nightmares. But John and Zee?"

She shuddered.

"Mindwarp said that after Thaumaton— after decades of begging him to be a better person— Zatanna was finally hurt and frustrated enough to tell him to "eb a retteb nosrep.""

She pronounced the backwards spell perfectly and let the implication sink in.

"Would have been right around the time he started cooperating with the JLD instead of needing to be strong armed into saving the world every time there was a global threat. I think you are the last to know because if you knew about any of it, Zatanna'd be risking you knowing about all of it."

Diana stiffened. She desperately didn't want that to be true. The information was second hand from a famously manipulative villain.

"I believe you ou are misinformed. Mindwarp would have left his own compulsions if a mental battle had granted him such deep insight. If he had access to this kind of information we would already be dead."

Traci leaned back and resumed washing the bar.

"Maybe, maybe not. You know what Deadman says about Johns whole vibe. He's too disgusting to possess. In a mental battle, my money is on the guy who already has an edge. The one who I know for a fact is going to cheat."

She rolled her shoulders inwards and seemed to shrink in on herself.

"It is only rumor. I don't actually know why Zatanna never told you. Could be it's just because they both got busy. Your team did spend most of that year running for your lives. Maybe you shouldn't take my word for it. Maybe you should go find the truth."

She tossed the rag over one shoulder,

"And maybe remind that asshole to pay his bar tab too.”

Notes:

Refrences

Thaxted is the tune lifted from the middle of Jupiter by Gustov Holst. There are several variations but the most common is two verses of the three verse poem "The Two Fatherlands" by Sir Cecil Spring Rice.

As alluded to last chapter, Ivy is actually 27. She's just really happy to be mistaken for an ageless cryptid.

Hexafoil it a real thing and it looks like this. In the Black Label Lucifer comicbook this symbol was used as art deco wallpaper.

Poppy pins tie back to the poem "In Flanders field" by Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae and are often sold as a fundraiser by veteran's support groups around the world. Retired stars are literally little parts of retired American flags gifted as a metaphor about valuing vets by the Stars for our Troops LLC.

Most of the time travel incidents were previously cited but Tanzania shows up again in Constantine #18 'bits and pieces.'

"OH... Ughh! Oh GOD, Filthy... Filthy...." - Deadman trying to possess John in Justice League Dark new 52 #5 'in the dark, finale'

The peppermint-lime combo is mentioned in Constantine #15

Oblivion bar is a reoccurring set piece from the JLD Rebirth run.

Sisterhood of the Slight of Hand died in Wonder woman/JLD 'the witching hour.' #1

Wonder woman is so tired of people saying she's not magic enough. Seriously, what a dumb thing to gatekeep JLD Rebirth #1

Zatanna confronts John about manipulating the team on her father's behalf for decades after his death in JLD Rebirth #13. John admits her accusations are true but there's only so much he can say and then gave a retelling of the events at Newcastle. He suggests asking Diana for help if she wanted to know more. At the end of the conversation Zee suggests asking other members of the team, including Dr Fate and Man-bat to help crack the compulsion but conveniently doesn't mention telling Diana despite the fact that that's literally what John just said he wanted. Super sus if we treat New 52 as canon.

Rebirth restored Giovanni Zataras original death from the Swamp Thing comics. He dies in Swampthing issue #50 'the end'. The JLD Rebirth run established that Zatara had previously contacted John in Ravenscar. Geovani knew he would die that night and made plans to manipulate the worlds magic users to defeat the upside-down man among other future JLD threats.

When given a choice I will be defaulting to vertigo canon but splicing in new 52, rebirth and DC blacklable content whenever possible. The stuff with Geovani was intentionally written to work with the previous established canon. Unlike certain other story elements I could mention (cough cough New 52 Cult of Cold Flame cough)

John fought Mindwarp in New 52 Constantine #13. Zatanna really did try to make him a better person but it didn't stick. After the fight with Mindwarp John realized he'd been under a mind whammy. He went and got that compulsion, (in this story *only* that compulsion) removed in Constantine #16.

Chapter 42: Investigations

Summary:

In which Dr. Kirk Langstrom has a few things to say on the subject of John Constantine.

“So what now?” Danny asked as they walked off through the icy afternoon.

“Now? Now I think I need to go get my coat back.” John had his hand jabbed all the way into his thin trouser pockets.

“And us?” Tucker asked.

He looked at them like they were being deliberately obtuse. “You’re in Gotham.”

“So?”

“So? So?” He seemed to struggle to explain something that should have been self-evident. Then he suddenly crouched and ran his fingers along a small iron ring set into the concrete curb—practically unnoticeable. The shadows on the street flickered slightly at his touch.

“What is that?” Jazz looked down, curious.

“It’s a ring for hitching horses.” He stood, stretching. “This old girl—she is vengeance, she is the night… but she’s also got a soft spot for travelers and a weird kind of hospitality leftover from a golden age long gone.” There was a quiet fondness in his voice. “No one celebrates like the desperate. Gotham’s culture is one of the only reasons to live here. The museums are top notch. The art, the music—second to none. Go have fun.”

“What about the end of the world? Weren’t we going to summon Lucifer or something?” Danny seemed confused by being told to relax after everything that happened so far.

“The world is always ending. And summoning the Devil is almost always a particularly daft idea.” He shrugged. “I was just going to knock politely on his front door and jerk his chain a little. See what that gets us. Last I heard, he was hosting dinner parties in Scotland and beefing with Odin over who should lead the Wild Hunt.”

“Right. And you’re not just going to leave us behind to go do that… are you?”

“Would I do that?”

Sam couldn't help notice that wasn’t, strictly speaking, a denial.

“Tell you what,” he said, adjusting his tie. “I’ll walk you to the art museum. You can kill a few hours while the party scene ramps up.”

“It’s Tuesday.” Jazz sounded skeptical.

“It’s Gotham.” He grinned. “I’m sure those Dumpty-Humpty fellows will circle back. Karaoke at Noonan’s can be a cultural experience all on its own. Not the same since the old crew moved on, but still not something to miss.”

"We're minors?" Jazz was emancipated but she was still 20.

"Unless they've got new management in the last decade I doubt the Gotham Villein Bar is going to care."

"Wait, it's a Villein bar?  I'm not sure that's... safe?" Tucker was trying to pull up reviews on his tablet-

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐: 'New Management, Hell Yeah!'

John shrugged and kept walking, "Don't worry about it. They're mostly harmless."

 

---

 

The Bat computer search algorithm for Constantine's past had been running so long it was starting to make unlikely connections. Given the nature of the threat they faced Batman had told it to flag interdimensional travel. The results were, strange.

The 56.8% facial match Tommy Quinn and 57 other residents of Earth 2 had shown up on in Dover in the aftermath the 2015 multiverse convergence crisis. Their last known locations before leaving their home dimension had all been inside a kilometer wide circle centered around John Constantine's childhood home in Liverpool. The initial Justice League investigation had missed the fact that Tommy Quinn was a 99.96% facial match for Thomas Constantine. The sour old man and his family had vehemently denied knowing anything about any dimensional travel or magic or Constantine. John had been unavailable during their resettlement but many heroes had been missing post crisis.

In 2019 the 98.6% facial match Jackie Constantine had told the Green Lanterns who reached out about her apparent temporal displacement that talking to space cops was 'against her religion.' Hal had noted that the young woman had seemed shaky on what her religion was but she had specifically specified that meeting multidimensional versions of herself also violated her faith system.

In the archives of the Justice League Dark there was... Batman stopped. That was clearly a zombie head labeled Harry Constantine. 

Diminishing returns.

He cancelled the program and set a new search algorithm for the images Red Robin had collected of the statue the team had retrieved from the Bleed.

It only took a few moments for results to start appearing but the facial recognition software was operating with only a partial photo of a face. They were riddled with inconsistent false positives—half-matches pulled from diver’s licenses, passport photos, and mugshots around the world.

Batman stared at one result in particular: a passport application from a Quebeci immigrant named Jared. The system flagged it as a 84% match for visible facial features. There were thousands of hits like this one, but something in that chin nagged at him. Something familiar. It was a hunch—but hunches had taken him far. He refined the filter, searching for someone he actually knew.

The list of known associates populated the screen.

There.

That chin.

Lucius Fox. Only an 73% match, but a more plausible link than a random foreign national. Batman dug deeper.

It took another hour to corroborate the hunch with something resembling hard evidence: an administrative anomaly from 29 years ago. Lucius Fox had abruptly lost access to four weeks of accrued sick leave. According to records, he’d reported to work every day—but there was a 13-week gap in his project file. The keycard logs showed him entering and exiting the building as usual, but during that time, there was no recorded progress, no output.

Thirteen weeks of unproductive time. Four weeks of sick leave gone, plus an unexplained additional nine. Exactly the length of Wayne Enterprises’ paid paternity leave.

Lucius Fox had a child 29 years ago.

Lucius had a son.

Lucius’s son was a bat.

Lucius’s son had gone missing.

And Batman—Batman hadn’t known.

Lucius still didn’t know.

Marlow was right.

The ghosts had to be stopped. They didn’t deserve reason, or mercy, or the benefit of the doubt. If the GIW was building a weapon, Batman intended to make sure it was used—on them.

No one messed with his people.

Constantine hadn’t offered a solution for the statue. He’d come and gone without explanation and was, as always, both unavailable and unpredictable.

There was a splash from a soapy basin somewhere down the hall.

He’d be back, Batman reminded himself. He just didn’t know when.

So, he called someone who would make himself enthusiastically available— someone who actually had a proven track record for turning magical artifacts back into missing apprentices.

Batman called Dr. Kirk Langstrom, resident scientist of the Justice League Dark. The man had a minor medical condition that hadn't slowed his research in the slightest. 

If anything, it had made him uniquely qualified for this line of work.

 

---

 

CEO Timothy Drake-Wayne was listening.

 Really. He was.

He just also had a few things open on his tablet. Not the best operational security—but these weren’t secret Batman case files. Not really. Not when Halocorp had sent them through official channels. If asked, he was reviewing an engineering schematic for a corporate partner. No one would point out that it looked like a death ray.

Not to his face, anyway.

Maybe if this were an office overseas, someone would’ve raised a fuss. But this was Gotham. Gothamites knew better than to tell an obviously overworked child genius that he was acting like a supervillain. They would just assume he was one and move on with their day.

Later—around a water cooler—it might come up. The R&D department would smooth things over by supplying their own rumors. “WE works with the Batfamily,” they’d say. “No need to worry about sketchy weapons projects.” Usually that was enough.

The schematic was frustrating. Not because it couldn’t work—but because something in his brain kept insisting that it already did.

Tim examined the laser. It itched. A familiar wrongness. Something recent. The distances, the scale, the ratios—

Focused and redirected power. Like Thaumaton.

But too small. The magical superweapons project from the Dark Multiverse had been the size of a hollowed-out mountain. He bit back a groan of frustration. It didn’t matter how similar they seemed. A twenty-foot lens array wasn’t even in the same league.

Except—

Solid poured aluminum.

The schematic detailed the exact composition of the chassis—but barely mentioned the other material components. That wasn’t too unusual. It was obviously a lens array. Lenses were made of glass or crystal or—

What if they weren’t?

Tim’s breath caught.

The weapon could work.

You just had to assume those three main lenses were made from something with the physical properties of very resilient, very tortured people.

Something like ectoplasm.

Marlow was wrong.

No threat was worth building a weapon like this.

Halocorp was helping the GIW build a weapon out of people.

Tim remembered the recent access logs on the Thaumaton files. His stomach dropped.

No—

Batman had been helping the GIW build a weapon out of people.

They had to be stopped.

 

---

 

Dr. Kirk Langstrom stood on the steps of the House of Mystery and removed the medical mask he used to hide his bifurcated nose in public. It didn't do much. He still had massive bat-like ears.

He took a deep, nervous breath.

He knew he was welcome in the House of Mystery. He’d been invited in repeatedly. That didn’t make it any less unnerving.

Batman had been insistent about retrieving the statue. Kirk was still apprehensive. It wasn’t that he was uncomfortable about no one being home. It was that he was pretty sure someone always was.

He shouldered a tackle box full of spell components and knocked on the front door. It swung freely inwards and didn’t even creak.

“It’s okay,” he reminded himself. “I’m a monster. The House likes monsters.”

He didn’t feel like a monster today. Maybe he should adjust his dosage to meet expectations?

His friends worried about the ethics of his self-experimentation and self-medication, but there was no better expert on his condition than himself.

He would always be some physical mixture of biological man and bat but the ratio was something of a sliding scale. One he frequently tweaked. Today, Man-Bat was thinking clearly.

That wasn’t always the case.

He peered around the entryway, looking for a staircase.

When he’d first found the Justice League Dark, he’d hoped magic could solve his problems. That, apparently, was a common misconception.

He was shackled to a scientific mind. He’d learned as much as he could, as quickly as he could—but he still struggled to think about magic in anything but analytical terms.

And that was a real problem. Because magic was many things—but science wasn’t one of them.

Still, he wanted to understand.

In the aftermath of the Witching War, Man-Bat had pulled out his tape recorder and asked each of his colleagues in turn: What is magic?

Khalid, the new Doctor Fate, had called magic a burden. Of course he would. He was burdened by fate.

Detective Chimp—Bobo—had called magic a curse. Of course he would. He had just lost a friend.

Constantine had called magic horror. The dark potential lurking in the shadows. Of course he would.  He’d spent more time lurking in shadows than the rest of them combined.

It was a good answer but not what Kirk needed to hear.

So, he’d asked Wonder Woman.

She had told the scientist that magic was the impossible made possible. Awe made into might. She'd told him magic was wonder. Of course she did. It was what he'd wanted to hear. It was why he’d asked her.

But then she’d hesitated. She admitted that none of the answers he had received so far had been wrong.

So, she changed hers. Given him something closer to the truth. Magic is power. The chance to shape the universe around you. It felt good and right and that’s the scariest part of it.

With or without magic, power almost always feels good.

That was True.

Like Wonder Woman, the scientist believed that there was very little that cannot be solved by examining the truth.

Later, in the fight with the Upside-Down Man, Giovanni Zatara’s answer had revealed itself. 

Magic was belief. He was a stage magician. Of course magic was belief.

But belief can be manipulated. If magic is belief than the real power is lies. That was all the opening John had needed.

One of the world's best liars had very nearly neutralized the threat all on his own. By talking. By making it doubt itself. By telling a different story. By distorting the Truth and manipulating Belief.

It hadn't quite been enough, but it was impressive. Then he'd given one last push —

In those moments when magic was untethered—when anything could have been true—Constantine had sacrificed everything to make sure they believed his truth above all others. The truth that would let them win.

Magic has a price.

It was true because they needed it to be true.

It was true because they believed it was true.

It was true because Constantine made it true.

It was true and it saved the world.

Magic has to have a price.

And then—

He hadn’t paid it.

Pulled himself off the ground like he hadn’t just died tragically, and slinked back to the bar for a pint like none of it mattered.

Someone else paid his tab.

Again.

That seemed to be a bit of a pattern.

Dr. Langstrom was good at patterns. He was beginning to think this pattern was telling him that John Constantine wasn’t the best person to stand next to in a fight.

He sighed, gazing down a seemingly endless hallways. He wasn’t going to find anything in here without help.

Magic is belief.

He tried his very best to believe it was possible for something to be both mysterious and helpful.

“Excuse me?” he said awkwardly. “May I have the statue from the vehicle in the garage?”

He felt incredibly foolish—but he closed his eyes, stilled his mind, and tried not to puzzle too hard over the tangled questions of geometry and quantum physics the House always raised in him. It would certainly be the most astounding thing his analytical mind could conceive of if this actually worked.

Very Mysterious indeed.

“…Please?”

When he opened his eyes, the statue was neatly set on a small area rug in front of him.

“Thank you.”

Notes:

Refrences

John actually attended one of those dinner parties with Lucifer in Lucifer: Black Label #15 “And Then Hell Blazed.”

Noonan’s Bar is a set piece originally introduced in the Hitman comics. It reoccurs in both the Section 8 titles and the Kite Man animated series.

John went to Earth-2 and relocated the old Neighborhood during the 2014 Crisis event. It was a shit show and none of the survivors ever want to see him again. Constantine #18–23 “Apocalypse Road.”

Jackie Constantine is the Laughing Magician native to the Books of Magick prison world Tim Hunter was sealed in. Her home reality was extremely unstable because it had no concept of religion, war, or magic.

Harry Constantine was cursed with immortality by the Ribbon Queen in 1649 — but she did a shitty job of it. John tracked him down and beheaded him in 1993, but zombie heads are fun, so he’s still rolling around in my fanon. Hellblazer #62 “End of the Line.”

Luke Fox, Batwing, led the Outsiders in 2023. This would have made him one of the first people the Justice League contacted for a multiversal issue with the Bleed. Now he’s a statue.

Man-Bat once turned a vase back into Kent Nelson’s missing apprentice, Khalid Nassour, so it’s totally reasonable for Batman to think he has the skillset to fix this. Justice League Dark #8 “Bound by Fate.”

The evil laser runs on ghost cores. Dun dun duuunnn!!!

Man-Bat interviews Wonder Woman as part of the Witching War finale in Justice League Dark (2018) #19 “Wonder Women?!”

John nearly talks the Upside-Down Man to death in Justice League Dark (2018) #26 “In the Jaws of Defeat” — and then dies tragically in the next issue while Zatanna does all the real work.

He gets better in Justice League Dark (2018) #28 “Zatanna’s Sacrifice,” when a newly resurrected Giovanni Zatara chooses to just stay dead so John can keep kicking.

Kirk Langstrom is a twinky, nerdy, awkward blorbo when he isn’t consumed by animal rage and trying to rip your face off. Look at him doing science at the magic house. Awwww.

Chapter 43: Grifts and gifts

Summary:

In which King Shark has a few things to say about John Constantine

Tim Hunter had been wandering the House of Mystery for over a week—he was pretty sure it was over a week. Time was slippery here, like the air itself refused to keep still. He meandered through the twisting halls with only his owl for company.

He wasn’t lost. He knew exactly where he was.

This was the labyrinth wing of the House of Mystery.

He knew he wasn't exactly welcome. Welcome guests could reliably find the exits. But he also wasn't dead so that was promising.

If he could make it to the library, it would all be worth it. He'd just wanted to borrow some books after all.

He hoped his friends didn’t do anything rash while he was gone.

 

---

Danny and the others walked past broken glass and rubbish strewn cross streets. “So, what’s showing at the Gotham Art Museum?”

“The Sini Serabit Sphinx,” Tucker said without looking up from his tablet. “On loan from the British Natural History Museum. Famous for being the linguistic missing link between hieroglyphics and the modern alphabet.”

Sam arched a brow, arms crossed. “It’s a cat statue,” she noted dryly.

“It’s Egyptian,” Tucker added, adjusting his glasses.

“It’s a rebus riddle?” Jazz asked, curiosity sharpening her tone.

“It also opened on 11/11,” Danny read over Tuckers shoulder, his eyes widening a fraction.

“Dang.” Sam sounded impressed.

“And it’s at an art gallery instead of the history museum?” Jazz’s frown deepened.

“It’s listed as performance art.” Tucker noted, his voice tightening. “I— I actually think someone is actively trying to get it stolen.”

Sam’s mouth parted in disbelief. “That’s insane. John, do you think—?”

Danny glanced over his shoulder just in time to catch the heel of a well-worn dress shoe vanishing into a side alley.

“John?” he called.

But the man was gone. Danny transformed without thinking, the air snapping cold around him. He shot down the alley, emerald light flaring from his fist and painting the wet brick walls in green shadows. Behind him, sneakers squeaked as his friends hurried to follow.

In the glow, the scene sharpened— a massive shark man with jaws clamped all the way around the left shoulder of the very wizard they’d been talking to minutes ago.

It was hideous, it was terrifying, it was—  Danny froze as he saw John reach up and stroke the creature’s snout with slow, deliberate fingers, eliciting a low, rumbling moan.

It was intimate.

Danny’s mind flashed back to that ragged scar he’d seen at the House— a jagged arc of dashes from bicep to throat. He’d assumed… he didn't know what he'd assumed, not this. He hadn't guessed hickey.

Constantine’s half-lidded eyes finally focused on the glowing ectoblast in Danny’s hand. The man pointedly cleared his throat, and a mouth the size of a trashcan lid slurped off his shoulder with a plunger-like pop.

“So, uh… this is Nanuae Sha'ark,” John said, voice light but eyes gauging their reactions.

“King Shark is a shark,” the creature rumbled, bass tones vibrating the air.

“Oh bloody hell, you broke another one?” John groaned, tilting his head back into a massive chest.

“King Shark is a shark.” The sharkman’s shoulders hunched, gaze dropping to the alley floor.

“Ugh. Give it here.” John held out his hand impatiently.

Nanuae reached into the pocket of his stretched-out hoodie and produced a tangled necklace of beads and string— it looked like the sad, frayed remains of a summer-camp friendship token.

“King Shark is a shark?”

“Yes, yes you are, and I know that even without the translation charm your English is better than that,” John said, rolling his eyes.

“[Hello], Nanuae,” Danny offered in a hissing gargle that didn't sound like it should come from a human throat. “[My name is] Danny.”

The shark’s eyes snapped up. “[You speak Atlantean?]”

Tucker’s jaw dropped. “Dude, you speak Atlantean?”

“Um… Dani did? It’s not hard.”

Nanuae’s fin flared in disbelief. “[It is hard! I’ve been trying to learn English for over a decade and I manage a vocabulary of 50 words or less? How are you doing this?]”

“[It’s actually extremely grammatically similar, you don’t even need to change the sentence structure. You’re just bad at this],” John cut in, his voice twisting into the same low impossible gargle.

[The grammar isn't the problem, I can't pronounce my own name in dry air!] Tucker instinctively stepped back as Nanuae roared in frustration, his teeth flashing.

“Hey. It’s okay to be bad at things,” Constantine said in English, his tone soft. His eyes glowed faintly yellow as his fingers reworked the beads in a complicated macramé pattern.

“[Says the man who is good at everything],” Nanuae shot back.

“You’re better at computer programming.” John finished the weaving, frayed threads now re-tied and shortened into a bracelet. He reached out and tied it snugly around Nanuae’s thick wrist. The shark’s speech shifted fluidly into English.

“Programming languages make sense. Spoken languages are messy and your vowels are so—”

“You sound like a nerd,” Danny blurted.

“I am a nerd.”

“No, I meant your voice,” Danny said, waving a hand in apology. “It’s all high-pitched and nasally.”

“Oh.” Nanuae’s fin lowered flat against his back as he hunched down, trying to seem smaller. “I like it. It’s nonthreatening.”

“You can threaten me any day,” John said with a lecherous leer.

“I know.” Nanuae’s reply was exasperated and a touch offended.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing.” His gaze flicked pointedly toward the kids, jaw tightening like he didn’t want to talk in front of the peanut gallery.

“It’s not nothing.”

“It’s just — you like threatening."

"Sure do" Knowing Nanuae could rip his throat out in an instant was one of the best things about their relationship,

"Feels like you only like me for my claspers.”

It was more than that. King Shark was a demigod who drew power from the Red— a primal river of blood and vitality and hunger without a trace of malice. It was the equal opposite of the Green. Being with him felt like skirting the edge of death. It felt something like peace. For once, John could pretend he wasn’t the killer in the relationship. He could pretend that an avatar of the Red could never die on him. He was too viscerally alive. Constantine gestured to the other man trying to explain his admiration—

"“I mean, yeah? Look at you.”

Nanuae’s head dipped, and his hand pulled back in response. The bracelet came with it. “Right. That’s the problem. You look but you don’t listen.”

He shoved past them, muttering as he shouldered his way out of the alley.

“This isn’t going to work.”

“Wait— what? Are you breaking up with me?” John called after him.

“I think I might be. You're a monster fucker John. I deserve better. Call me when you grow up.”

A half-dozen pinpricks of blood seeped through John’s dress shirt as the shark man disappeared into the Gotham night.

“What— what did I say?” John’s voice cracked just slightly.

It was Jasmine who recovered first, pressing her palm to her face. “I’m all for radical honesty in relationships, but even my idiot father knows the correct answer to ‘do you only love me for my body’ isn’t yes.”

"Hey John?" Danny asked, curious "What are claspers?"

 

---

Damian was hanging the jacket up to air dry when a sudden clang of metal rang out, sharp against the quiet. He frowned, glancing toward the floor. Something had fallen from the empty pocket.

It was a hilt— a hilt without a sword. The crescent-shaped crossguard sprouted a stump that was mostly useless ricasso. The tip didn’t even clear the prongs of the crossguard.

“Maybe some sort of throwing weapon?” Damian murmured, turning the odd piece of steel over in his hand. He slid it back into the pocket.

It fell out again.

This time, it was accompanied by a yellowed envelope— a long-forgotten thank-you card with a receipt dated from the '90s still tucked inside. Damian’s brow furrowed.

“This is… for me?” he asked aloud.

The sleeve twitched.

The sword spoke.

"Ah do declare ah have been gifted to you, young man."

Damian dropped the hilt with a startled grunt.

"Do try to be less clumsy in the future," the voice chided, prim and faintly amused.

He crouched, picking the hilt and the card back up. They refused to stay in the pocket a third time.

"Now see here— ah say— you are a young man with very specific interests, and you are dismissing a very thoughtful gift. Where is your sense o’ hospitality?"

Damian exhaled sharply. “I apologize, but you are clearly a magical artifact, and I will be returning you as soon as possible.”

"No, wait— wait! Constantine is a terrible swordsman. Leaving a fine blade such as myself in his possession is cruel and unusual punishment. Even the jacket agrees so— and ah never thought ah would find myself in agreement with such peculiar company."

“You are not a fine blade. You are not even a dagger.”

"Ah am a Moonblade. The shape and heft of my person wanes with the moon. Surely you must see the potential."

“A blade that changes weight every day?” Damian’s tone was skeptical, but his grip shifted on the hilt— testing.

"Truly only a master of the craft could wield such a conundrum effectively. Ah possess a number of interesting properties on the spiritual plane as well. Please— ah could teach you. A month. Give me a month to prove mahself and show mah full character. If not, you can ask the jacket for another token of gratitude."

A gift, a sword, and a pet? Damian was tempted.

He slid the awkwardly shaped hilt into his own pocket. This time, it stayed put.

 

---

The afternoon was warming up, and so long as John kept moving, he was fine. He looked around the grounds of Wayne Manor.

He must have wandered off and just… kept walking. He did that sometimes. Not wanting to be some place and then just— He tried to piece together the last hour—ah yes, he’d borrowed Tucker’s phone to call an Uber. Somehow that had turned into a long, aimless walk across a lawn that seemed to oozed privilege.

He finally noticed the state of his shirt and scarf and took a moment to tell the bloody droplets on his shirt to move. They slowly crawled like slugs on cement, pooling into one red stain on his left cuff.

Then he ripped the cuff off and lit the scrap of fabric on fire.

Nanuae was a demigod with a specific affinity for blood in the water. Anyone else he encountered might not be so resistant to the stuff.

He looked up from his work and realized he'd wandered into a family graveyard.

And he was out of grave dirt.

John’s eyes lit on the headstones with a mix of mischief and opportunism. He was struck by the realization that Gotham might very well try to kill him for this. All the better—proved it had the exact emotional resonance he was aiming for. Besides, she couldn’t possibly hate him more than New York did.

He found the combined headstone for Thomas and Martha Wayne. With practiced casualness, he scraped a small handful of loose soil from the top of the grave and shoved it straight into his trouser pocket.

 

When he made it to the Batcave, Batman had footage of a maggoty dog pulled up on the Batcomputer’s massive screen. The grainy image twitched and writhed in too much detail.

John winced. “Oh, fuck me. You’ve got the bloody documentary.”

“I do.” Batman’s gravel-deep voice cut through the air without looking away from the monitor. “What were you doing at the family plot?”

John’s stomach sank a fraction. He should have expected Batman to be tracking him across the grounds. Paranoid bastard.

He adjusted his stance, buying a second. “I was, ah—checking for resonance?” He didn't sound very convincing.

Batman’s silence was damning. Time to distract.

“You ever think about disinterring the lot of ’em and building a mausoleum?” John asked, like he was just tossing out casual home renovation advice.

“No.” The response was gruff and immediate. “Final resting places should be final.”

“Well, sure, they should be,” John allowed, his voice lilting into persuasion, “but this is your family and beggars can’t be choosers. Take it from the guy who’s done it a few times—above ground’s much easier to break out of. Ventilation and an escape hatch might go a long way to easing certain anxieties moving forward.”

Bruce’s eyes narrowed, but there was a flicker of consideration behind them. “We could rig it with weapons and Wi-Fi.”

The man was actually thinking about it.

“Right, then,” John muttered, striding past with his pocket full of grave dirt unchallenged, the faintest smirk tugging at his lips.

In another corner of the Batcave, Man-Bat was standing at an intricate chalk outline drawn around the stoney statue. He was attempting experiment number forty-eight to restore it to corporeal form.

John wandered up,  “Hey, Kirk. Nice ritual. What’s this one based on?”

“Antioch’s lesser seal,” Kirk replied, carefully waving an anathema over the pattern. His ears flicked nervously. “Am I doing it right?”

John tilted his head, watching him work. “Dunno. Are you?”

“I—” Man-Bat swallowed, this was obviously a test. “Yes. Yes, I am.”

“Good. You’ve almost got me convinced,” John said dryly. “Now try convincing reality.”

“Ah. Yes.” Kirk’s nose twitched awkwardly. “Any suggestions for my next attempt?”

“There is no next attempt,” John said, stepping closer. “You’re doing this perfectly, and there’s no need to plan for failure because failing isn’t even on the table.”

Kirk hesitated. “Do or do not. There is no try?”

John squinted. “Hm?”

“Star Wars?”

“Oh, sorry,” John said with an offhand shrug. “I don’t always pick up on movies that came out while I was institutionalized.”

Man-Bat froze mid-gesture, the anathema slipping from his clawed fingers to the floor with a clatter. His wide amber eyes locked on John in shock.

“You’ve never seen Star Wars?” The half-human, half-bat hybrid sounded genuinely horrified.

“I’ve seen Star Wars,” John corrected quickly, holding up his hands. “Just… not that one. I’ve been busy. Is that so hard to believe?”

“Yes!” Kirk leaned forward, ears angling toward him accusingly. “You've been busy for 45 years? You pretend to be this effortlessly cool magic guy, but I see you over there name dropping obscure sources; the Grimorium Veta, the Egyptian Book of the Dead, the Atlantean Sea Charter—  I know you’re a bigger nerd than I am. You know dozens of dead languages and have probably read hundreds of books written in each of them. I bet you have a three-foot-tall stack of prophecy, grimoires, and esoteric poetry next to your bed. But you never circled back to Star Wars?”

“I don’t read prophecy. Not on purpose, anyway,” John grimaced. “No one was putting proper trigger warnings on their portents of doom back in the day. Sometimes they get slipped into historical accounts, but I try to avoid them. I like movies fine, but if I’m watching anything it’s just a social thing. Dinner and a show. Once a film is out of theaters, I don’t really seek it out unless someone insists.”

“Oh, I insist,” Kirk said firmly, winged arms spreading slightly for emphasis. “You missed my birthday last month, and you are not getting out of it. This place definitely has a theater. Your place definitely has a theater. We are doing this.” He turned, calling across the cave, “Nightwing! Hey, Nightwing! John Constantine has never seen Empire Strikes Back. We can invite Khalid and— oh no!”

Kirk stopped mid-shout, eyes going wide. “Do you think Wonder Woman has seen Star Wars?”

To John’s surprise, Nightwing actually answered without missing a beat. “Yes. Donna exposed her to it years ago. Rebel princess fights evil empire was a great choice for Amazon movie night.”

John seized the moment to change the subject. There was something he'd been meaning to address for a while and this was as good an opportunity as any “I’m sorry I missed your birthday. Tell you what— I know you get all excited about magical linguistics—”

Kirk’s ears perked up instantly. “Are you going to teach me Ancient Etruscan?”

“Better,” John said, smirking. “What if I told you there was a living language made entirely of somatic components that could be integrated into physical spellcasting?”

“Oh, wow! That’s— wait. No.” His ears drooped, suspicion dawning. “That’s…”

“You want ASL, BSL, or Gestuno?”

Kirk’s ears sagged all the way down to his chin in embarrassment. “You know.”

“Hey. None of that,” John kept his tone light. “Look at me. Regrettable self medication is something we have in common. There's a whole idiom about stones and glass houses.”

“You didn’t turn yourself into a shitty bat hybrid because you had hereditary hearing loss,” Kirk said morosely.

“No. I turned myself into a shitty demon hybrid because I had a broken leg.”

Kirk’s brows shot up. “I thought you were dying of cancer?”

John winced. “That too, but I didn't know it. No. I took my first demon blood transfusion to get myself out of traction six months faster. Nothing life-threatening. I would have been fine after physical therapy. So I get it. Mistakes were made. I’m serious about the benefit of learning a language that’s mostly hand waving and eyebrow waggling. It’s magically useful and tactically sound.”

“Would— would you teach me a spell in Sign?”

John chuckled, shaking his head. He’d spent years resisting teaching the scientist any spells at all.

“Come on, John. I’m serious.”

“Okay, okay. Tell you what— you pick up 1,000 words in a sign language of your choice, drop the Star Wars thing, and I’ll translate one of my very first spells into Sign and teach it to you.”

Kirk’s ears shot upright. “Five hundred words and you’ve got a deal!”

“Sure thing. But it has to be a full language with grammar. ASL, or BSL, or we learn a new one together. I hear good things about Korean.”

“You’re kind of proving my point about nerdom for me,” Kirk said, squinting. “I have no clue what Gestuno is anyway.”

“It’s an older name for International Sign, but it’s supplemental, so you really shouldn’t start with it.”

“No one really uses British Sign Language outside of the UK,” Nightwing added walking over. “The Bats all know ASL and International Sign.”

“Right. If all the Bats are doing it, I’ll do that one then,” Kirk said, nodding to himself. “You know... as a Bat.”

John smiled to himself. Five hundred signs plus accompanying grammar and modifiers would be close to fluency—especially given Kirk’s completionist streak. It would go a long way toward conquering the Man-Bat’s fear of hearing loss.

It wouldn’t do to have a teammate with such an easily manipulated phobia.

Kirk smiled too. He could keep that promise no problem. He wouldn’t need to ever mention media literacy again—secure in the knowledge that Nightwing had made no such deal.

Notes:

References

The Sini Serabit Sphinx is a real thing, and honestly? It deserves a “most likely to be stolen in Gotham” award. It’s practically tailor-made for niche villain schticks: it’s a riddle, it’s a pun, it’s a cat, it’s Egyptian, and it’s valuable. In the real world, it has already been stolen—by the British Museum.

John Constantine and King Shark. I ship it. But in a world with actual animal people, “monsterfucker” probably carries the same racial-fetish baggage as terms like “yellow fever” or “jungle fever.” King Shark doesn’t think John sees him as a full person. He does—he’s just terrible at communicating it.

“King Shark is a shark” is his Pokémon-esque catchphrase from the live-action Suicide Squad movie. That got subverted in Justice League Dark: Apokolips War when he suddenly said, “It was an honor to fight by your side,” after an entire film of pretending not to speak English. Compare that to his talkative nerd-voice in the Harley Quinn series and, well—you can see how I got to “translation magic.”

Claspers are shark penises. There are two of them, but only one gets used at a time. (Get your head out of the gutter.)

The moon blade was in the rage room. John picked it up while wrecking the place. The blade houses the spirit of Mr. E. (Constantine #8, Spot the Hustle). Mr. E is pretending to be the sword itself. He talks like a Southern gentleman, pronouncing “I” as “ah” throughout the New 52.

New York is furious with John—and for very good reasons. (Constantine: The Hellblazer #13, Supply-Side Demonomics)

The maggoty dead dog B-roll comes from footage filmed by an American documentary crew that died trying to uncover what happened to Mucous Membrane. (Hellblazer #246, Newcastle Calling)

John Constantine is a nerd. For every magical feat that’s luck, synchronicity, or lies, there’s another that’s just straight-up research. He knows things because he did the reading.

He also really hates being told the future. This causes tension with precognitive teammates—like when the new Doctor Fate started making predictions and John basically told him to fuck off. (Justice League Dark: Wolves at the Door)

Donna Troy is one of the heroes who’ve gone by Wonder Girl. She’s a Titan and one of Dick’s best friends. (Tales of the Titans #3: Donna Troy)

Comic-book John knows British Sign Language. (Hellblazer: Marks of Woe). My John knows multiple sign languages—because if he knows several demonic dialects, why wouldn’t he?

Dr. Robert Kirkland “Kirk” Langstrom mutated his DNA out of a fear of going deaf. Now he’s stuck with an entirely different debilitating condition—but with excellent hearing. (Batman Villains Secret Files and Origins, 2005)

Nergal offered John a demon blood transfusion after his ghosts convinced him to jump out of a moving train. Constantine broke a leg- and another leg- and a few ribs... possibly an arm. Nergal needed John up and moving for a larger plot against Heaven and was also threatening to start eating babies in the maternity ward if John refused. (Hellblazer #8: Intensive Care)

So while Kirk’s mutation was also a reckless, poorly thought-out medical decision… John’s stakes were notably higher.

Chapter 44: Running off

Summary:

In which a talking sword has a few things to say on the subject of John Constantine

The Sini Serabit Sphinx was small and unimpressive. The hieroglyphics looked more like graffiti than a linguistic breakthrough in written phonetics. The laser grid and blast doors were state of the art and well lit though. 

“Hey, Danny,” Sam asked quietly, Danny was reading an interpretive display on how pressure sensors worked. Sam shifted from foot to foot, uncertain. “Last night was nice and all, but… your wizard mentor guy just dashed off. Again. I don’t know how much he’s actually helping? I—I think we should be working on saving the world ourselves if he’s going to keep running off like that.”

Danny rubbed the back of his neck, looking up. “Okay? How do we do that?”

“We could ask one of the demon lords for Lucifers address?” Jazz interjected her tone hesitant but thoughtful.

Sam’s head wiped around, eyes wide like the other woman had just grown a third eye. 

“Actually…” Jazz tapped a finger against her lip thinking aloud. “If the book isn’t too out of date, there’s one at the bar. Noonan’s. The, um… Demon Lord of the Criminally Insane?”

Sam blinked back a headache. “The Demon Lord of the Criminally Insane lives in Gotham?”

Danny’s jaw dropped. “The Demon Lord of the Criminally Insane regularly hangs out with villains?”

Tucker adjusted his glasses. “What book?”

“The book I found in the exhibit hall,” Jazz said quickly, pulling the gold leafed tome from her bag. “That’s where I got the Hexafoil? It’s vague, but, uh… I think it’s some kind of eclectic journal and scrapbook. Whatever it started as there's multiple modern authors. Here, near the back, a note about ‘debts owed’ and a receipt and it’s—it’s a bar tab. I think this Demon Lord of the Criminally Insane person actually bartends for the Gotham villains.”

Sam pinched the bridge of her nose, then let out a long breath. “That… actually explains a few things."

 

---

 

“What happened to your shirt?” Nightwing asked, his eyes narrowing as he caught sight of Constantine’s frayed sleeve in the fluorescent light of the Batcave.

The sleeve had been torn and a line of tiny ragged holes across the front was much more obvious up close.

“Nothing,” John said flatly, tugging the ruined edge as though that would disguise it.

Nightwing frowned. “Would you like to borrow a hoodie?”

“I would like my jacket back.”

“I don’t think it’s dry yet,” Nightwing said carefully. “Robin got… carried away.”

Constantine squinted. “Carried away how?”

“Why don’t we grab you a spare shirt and let him explain himself?”

 

---

 

“I fed ten pounds of UHMWPE” Robin admitted while John dug through what was essentially a lost and found hamper in the laundry room.

“You… fed it?” Constantine cut in, incredulous. He pulled out an oversized red sweatshirt with a lightning bolt on it and gave it a sniff.

Clean. Shame.

He'd never tried speedster sweat as a spell component, but he had a few ideas. 

The jacket hung in the corner, but Robin had slapped his hand to keep him from touching the tacky layer of hydrophobic substance that was drying on it. 

The stabby ninja alone wouldn't have stopped him — but as he'd done so, the edge of the coat had drifted the tiniest bit out of his reach. 

It was subtle. 

It could have been a breeze. 

It wasn't.

He wasn't hurt. 

He was just— looking for something else to wear.

Robin and Red Robin were both too small. Batman, Nightwing and Red Hood were all too big. That left the spare clothes from their friends.

He held up a black tee shirt with a red S and nearly twice as much space in the shoulders than he needed.

Or not.

“It voluntarily up took and redistributed outside material,” Damian recited, tone clinical as John continued to dig in the bin, “when offered a variety of options, it showed a preference for Ultra-high Molecular Weight Polyethylene” 

“And what does that mean, exactly?” Constantine asked, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“The wool liner is now an approximately ninety-ten wool-poly blend. Of the available options UHMWPE was closest to wool in fiber texture and diameter. I think that's what it liked about it. The results should should be significantly more resistant to slashing or stabbing. Hypothetically, it's bulletproof—at least for small ammunition. I recommend not testing it, especially against armor-piercing rounds. It's loose and without added plating you will still feel the concussive force of any impact. The drawback to the material is increased heat sensitivity but I do not believe it will be an issue. You have been to Hell and back without melting the original nylon. I think we can assume it already thermoregulates on it's own and can compensate.”

John blinked at him, stunned. “Oh. Uh. Do—do the pockets work?”

“No. It keeps dropping this.” Damian produced the strange stunted blade with clinical detachment.

“Damian,” Nightwing’s voice sharpened into reprimand. “You know better than to touch obviously enchanted items.”

“I was wearing gloves and it was accompanied by a thank-you card,” Damian insisted. “I believe the jacket was grateful.”

“Bastard’s being awfully quiet,” Constantine muttered, reaching out. He flicked the crossguard with a single finger. A tiny spark leapt from the hilt.

“Ow. ” the sword hissed suddenly. “Dagnabbit, Konstantin, you ahre a supremely irritating individual.”

John sighed. “And you were playing dead. What do you want with the kid?”

“Nothing,” the voice replied smoothly. “His observation is correct—ah have been gifted.”

“By who?”

“By the jacket. Surely even you can see a service has been done. Ah certainly have no objection. The child is a fine swordsman of moral fiber.”

Constantine rubbed at his temples, then glanced at Nightwing. “How much trouble do I get in if I give Robin a magic talking sword?”

Damian’s eyes lit with poorly disguised delight.

Nightwing folded his arms. “Depends on how dangerous it is. He’s already got a kryptonite sword, so… as long as it isn't any more dangerous than that it shouldn’t be too much of a problem.”

John sighed. “Okay. Right. First off—the voice you’re hearing is the trapped soul Mr. E. He’s a wizard I imprisoned in the sword about a dozen years ago. I was saving him for later, but he doesn’t affect the function of the Moonblade too much—so long as you don’t listen to him. He’s got an old JLD file, if you want the details. The important part? His worst crimes are the ones he justified for ‘the greater good.’”

“Ah am a hero in service of humanity,” the sword declared.

“My point exactly.” Constantine gestured with a sharp flick of his hand. “This man thinks the phrase ‘would you kill baby Hitler’ is a request and his main hang-up is logistics.”

The hilt’s voice grew smug. “Would that ah could, but sadly ah have never been known to meander backward against time without aid of the Endless. Certainly ah cannot in good faith claim Hitler full grown—by Destiny’s leave your compatriot, the Midnighter, has already killed him in the bunker.”

“Midnighter?” Nightwing asked.

“The precinct pugilist with the sunny spouse? Apollo and Midnighter,” the sword replied, matter-of-fact.

“Never heard of ’em,” John muttered.

The hilt gave a scoffing noise. “Ah assure you that you very much have made the acquaintance of those wretched sodomites, though ah do not claim to know what deception a liar such as yourself may self inflict”

“I’m a liar?” John’s lip curled in accusation. “You’re the one who groomed me to join a cult before my balls dropped.”

“Did ah really? It’s been so long for you, and so much longer for myself. You can hardly fault me for the gentlemanly pursuit of retribution against evil.”

“That’s the rub, innit?” John leaned on the spare clothing hamper, eyes hard. “You’ve always been too quick to label ‘evil’ as Evil. Too bloody biblical. ‘Sodomites’? Really? No one can be good all the time E. Among other things, it’s boring.”

“On this, we shall continue to disagree.”

“So yes,” Constantine said, turning his attention back to Robin. “Go ahead and look after the Moonblade. Just don’t let him get to you. Every murderer changes the future, being able to see that future change doesn't mean you haven't just killed someone.”

“Ah still hold we should have killed the Hunter before he grew teeth,” the sword argued. “Tell me, wizard—how many died for your principles? Do their ghosts whisper accusations in your ear or have even your victims deserted you?”

“You know what? That’s it—” Constantine abandoned the hamper and snatched the hilt from Robin. He turned, muttering as he rifled through a supply cabinet. He uncapped a bottle of rubbing alcohol with his teeth, gargled an incantation, then spat the mouthful across the hilt.

“Here.” He held out the dripping crossguard to Damian.

The sword went silent.

Robin wrinkled his nose. “I do not want to touch that.”

John looked down at the drool coated weapon trying to find fault with it. “Oh. Right.”

He flicked open a lighter and touched the flame to the hilt. Blue fire roared upward, briefly shaping itself into the outline of a much larger blade before sputtering out.

He calmly wiped away a smudge of soot with a spare shirt.

“Did you just kill him?” Nightwing asked incredulous.

“No. He’s still rambling on—we just can’t hear it.” John offered the cleaned hilt to Robin. “Remember, moonlight is good for cutting through illusions, barriers, souls, and dreams. This moonlight is also a sword. I’m rubbish with swords, and this one keeps changing. It deserves better than me and it certainly deserves better than him.”

Robin accepted it, his posture stiff but respectful.

“Thanks for looking after the jacket,” John said quietly.

Nightwing raised his eyebrows at Damian. “Damian. What do we say?”

“You are welcome. Thank you for the sword,” Damian replied stiffly. 

 

---

 

Batman wished he knew the name of the statue. 

He also wished he didn't wish he knew.

He should be more detached. Man-Bat was announcing experiment 53 into a handheld tape recorder and Bruce envied Dr. Langstroms commitment to scientific method.

Lucius Fox had a son and his son was a Bat. 

How long? Did he only train with them or did he have a room in the manor? Had there been another teenager in his life, someone close to Jason's age? Were they friends? How had he found out, through his father's work? Through his own ingenuity? When? That equipment— did he fly?

What was his name?

He'd been warned against involving more people than necessary, but Constantine had entered and returned safely from the Bleed without apparent ill effects. At what point was it prudent to send in the calvary?

He hated reality warping incursions from beyond knowable space. He hated that he had no idea how many times he had faced a challenge like this. Hated that he had only a vague idea of what he had done before.

The Justice League should have a team for this.

Batman sat at the Batcomputer, rereading Red Robin’s reports trying to distract himself under the pretense that he was collecting more data— when a single word in Constantine’s newly filed advanced directive snagged his attention:

Effra.

“Hm.”

Without closing the personal file, he pulled up a photograph Oracle had forwarded two days ago. The River Effra had overflowed its underground course, flooding a street in Brixton. The former vigilante Knight had reported the scene.

The image showed a charred row house with a muddy stoop, water still pooled in the gutter.

Batman was still studying the photo when leather soles scuffed on the stone floor behind him.

John Constantine stepped up wearing a sparkly purple windbreaker and a blue scarf. The wizard peered over his shoulder and stared at the image on the screen in horrified fascination.

The man himself. An amazing coincidence.

 

---

 

His house had burnt down.

Epiphany.

Sweet innocent ‘Piffy. His partner in everything. His sunlight. He needed to get to London. He needed to get to London now. He could feel excess energy rolling under his skin, smell her shampoo—

He looked wildly around the Batcave for a way home and began running for a dark corner of the far wall. 

Tunnels. 

Tunnels into the city. 

Gotham’s favorite knight’s favorite cave, and a damp tunnel system.

He pushed on her walls as he went. Not a request for access— just panicked mental gibberish to connect Gotham's favorite cave and damp tunnel system to London's favorite cave and damp tunnel system. 

He barely broke stride as he sprinted from the Batcave into Map’s precious abandoned transit service hub. 

Map was gone. Picking a fight with the abstract concept of suicide bombers had been suicide and London just wasn't the same without him. 

This cave wasn't just a cave, it was the crossroads of the entire nation. Trains met sewers met rivers met catacombs beneath roads connected to planes connected to the whole world. From here he could take any route in the city. 

Effra was a hazy decorporealized impression of a nymph sleeping in the nearest sewer line and she owes him but he doesn't listen as she tries to pull herself together enough to say she tried as he runs along her subterranean embankment and up onto the street and it's hardly any time at all before he's running into the burnt building in Brixton.

---

 

It took under five minutes for Batman to get a lock on John Constantines new location.

London was one of the most heavily surveilled cities in the world and the Justice League had compromised the closed circuit system decades ago. CCTV on the bat computer caught the wizard's panicked dash into his own home, his burning footprints leaving soft spots of hot creosote behind.

Batman notified the JLD. 

He didn't need to. 

It wasn't a priority but it was a suspicious case of magical arson. 

By luck or fate or something else entirely— a three person unit was already on site.

Notes:

References

As bad as I am at writing Mr. E’s antebellum accent, I rest easy knowing I’m still doing better than New 52 writer Ray Fawkes.

This character has a convoluted, time-travel-heavy timeline that honestly isn’t that important, but I’ll try to lay it out anyway:

Mr. E was first introduced in a different “House”-based horror anthology—he was the Caretaker of Secrets of Haunted House back in the ’80s. (Something I only learned while fact-checking this chapter, so now I have homework: read up on Haunted House and its connection to Sinister House so I can expand my little “House-verse.”)

He’s a blind man in a white suit with fanatical Southern Baptist values and the ability to “see what needs to be seen.” He uses this to hunt and kill supernatural beings who would otherwise live peacefully among humans. Spoiler: seeing evil in everyone and everything isn’t a superpower; it’s a psychosis.

Mr. E was arguably the first person to try to kill Tim Hunter. He and Constantine were two of the four “Trenchcoat Brigade” wizards tasked with guiding the kid away from his more destructive destinies in the original Books of Magic miniseries. Together, Tim and Mr. E traveled to the end of reality—where Mr. E promptly tried to murder him without witnesses. Death and Destiny of the Endless were there for the death of the multiverse and intervened. Death sent Tim straight home, but she made Mr. E walk back by experiencing every moment in reverse, T. H. White Once and Future King style, as punishment (Books of Magic #4: The Road to Nowhere).

Along the way, he met and traveled with Russian time traveler Pyortr Konstantin. Mr. E sometimes forgets which Laughing Magician he’s talking to, but it rarely matters—they’re all the same type of asshole anyway.

As he kept walking backward through time, E met Merlin at the Source Wall, stole a powerful magic McGuffin, and carried it back to the JLD in 2023—who were, frankly, a little surprised to see him (JLD: Great Wickedness).

From there, he continued back to the ’90s and resumed linear time. During the New 52 era, he was a devoted member of the Cult of the Cold Flame—a group that handed dangerous magic to kids just to watch them implode, then recruit any survivors. (Magical Darwinism at its ugliest.) In this version, teen Constantine lost control of Tamarack’s fire spell, killing his two loving parents (Constantine #14: Voice in the Fire).

I like the cult angle, but that retcon? Absolutely not. I’ve invested way too much into Thomas and Mary Constantine to fridge them. So here’s my fix: in this story, the uncontrollable fire happens at school instead of at home. To keep the tragedy, Billy—the kid from Mystery of the Meanest Teacher who was terrified of magic—dies in the blaze. Like Buffy, John is then expelled for arson. Mr. E was at least aware of this, but because it predates his millennia of backward time travel, he mostly doesn’t remember.

In 2014, John trapped Mr. E in the Moonblade while fighting Tamarack and the Cult of the Cold Flame (Constantine #8: Spot the Hustle). He’s been keeping him on ice ever since, just in case he needs a human sacrifice he doesn’t care too much about. (Yes, Constantine occasionally practices premeditated human sacrifice. No, the Justice League does not know. Hellblazer #256: Newcastle Calling.)

"Prescient Pugilist with the Sunny Spouse." Midnighter’s “superpower” is tech-based battle analysis—he always knows how to win any fight. Great for crimefighting, not great for his marriage. Apollo and Midnighter are Wildstorm’s Superman and Batman. And despite being as strong and fast as Superman, Apollo’s real superpower is staying married to a man who who's powerset includes wining any argument. If this sounds like the plot of a fanfic, that’s because it basically is one. Pat yourselves on the back, everyone—we won!

For those keeping score, yes: in main DC continuity, Midnighter killed Hitler in the bunker on April 30, 1945 (Midnighter #4: Killing Machine). He also killed a bunch of other people who weren't on his list because "I can only walk past so many Nazis"

Hopefully, the rest of this chapter isn’t too referential. It’s the start of the arc most of you have been waiting for, and I’m sorry it’s taken so long to get here. I added some tags weeks ago when I drafted Chapters 45 and 46—here they are again as content warnings, just in case it wasn’t already obvious what’s coming:

• Mental Coercion
• Mental Violation
• Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery

Chapter 45: A Different Feeling

Summary:

In which John Constantine has a few things to say on the subject of memory.

Notes:

Dead Rats Do Not Touch was a tag discussed on r/Archiveofourownmemes recently. The general consensus was that it could mean:

• The dead character is still dead and will remain so.
• A nonexplicit Dead Dove warning — read the tags, because even non-graphic content can be disturbing.
• The "rat" character is experiencing Dead Dove.

Not sure if that last one will ever apply here, but the first two are definitely accurate.

Diana of Themyscira had made her choice.

The things Giovanni Zatara had locked inside John Constantine as a child could have ended the world if even one variable had shifted. Diana could have broken that enchantment at any moment—but she hadn’t known she needed to. For fifty years, John had been enacting another man’s plan, trapped under a compulsion that stole his voice.

He was on her team. She should know her people better. She had a responsibility to be better.

Never again.

If John Constantine carried another set of debilitating enchantments tethered to his mind, she would be there to break them.

When she looped the lasso around the panicked wizard’s wrists, she thought she was helping.

“Who is Epiphany Greaves?”

The wizard screamed, and she didn’t let go.

Only then did she finally understand what she was looking at.

Call it shield sorrow, shell shock, or battle fatigue—Steve Trevor had been right. Old wounds always looked the same, even when the world constantly found new names for the same human wreckage of war.

Magic always has a price. Sometimes, that price looks like this.

He would answer. Eventually. Wonder Woman hadn’t helped then, but she had no reason to believe she wasn’t helping now.

 

---

 

Epiphany. Beautiful, selfish, perfect, petty, territorial, gifted, manipulative Epiphany.

The child he’d sent home a dozen times had followed him across the world again in the spring of 2010. He’d trusted her to make a concentrate from someone else’s potion—bastardized bindi paste to mark innocent women for a demon to consume. She’d reduced it, remixed it, and then they’d both practically bathed in the stuff to force a fight with the monster and afterwards he'd had a gaping hole in his chest, but he had hardly noticed—because she had been so beautiful.

Suddenly, he hadn’t cared how young she was, or who her father was, or about the spear still lodged in his lung, or that they were in India looking for a different woman entirely—Phoebe. Nice, normal Dr. Phoebe Clifton-Avery. He’d just… given up on Phoebe.

He saw truth then—burning, perfect, and profound—and he couldn’t look away. It hurt. It blazed and blistered across his mind, and for a moment, he thought he might actually be dying. His wife wasn’t just a liar. His wife was a lie. Almost nothing about the woman he loved had been True. It shook his foundation. And then—just when he thought he’d shatter into ten thousand pieces—a second voice. She wasn’t alone. But the lasso was so loud, and he couldn’t quite track it—

"Stop! Those delusions are load-bearing, Diana!"

"It’s only the truth."

"Yes. The truth is too much. Stop. Please? Stop, stop—"

"He needs to see. I’ll be asking after you and your father next."

"That was different. He was good at this. He taught me to respect the limits of the mind. You need to slow down and assess—"

"You dare speak to me of respect? No. You have lost that right. I am done listening to you."

"Dammit, Di! You love everyone and it’s clouding your judgment. If it was only your repair work, it would be different—but it’s not.

 

A scuffle. A scream of rage and frustration. And then—

 

*rednoW namoW eb enog.*

 

 John Constantine collapsed on the ground as the lasso that had held him was suddenly elsewhere.

He shivered on the empty husk of a floor that used to be his home and looked up to see who had saved him from the knowledge inside himself, trying to find out who had pulled him back from the brink of the truth inside his own mind.

Zatanna.

Zatanna had come.

Zatanna Zatara had come to help.

The soul-bond they’d once shared had been reduced to a twisted residue decades ago without Nick to balance out the trio. It had still been a real tangible link once upon a time. Even though they both pretended it had never happened, John Constantine knew exactly what his ex would do if she found him like this.

Zatanna Zatara had come to help and that was terrifying .

Fuck no. Bring back the lasso.

There was nothing worse than tampering with a memory. Rosa had done it. The Oranesy contingent had done it. Her father had done it. He’d even done it to himself, back when he was younger and dumber. Of all the things he’d been through… a body is just a tool. A mind is a person.

And Zatanna Zatara was guilty of destroying minds.

It was a wonder anyone trusted her at all.

“Go away, Zee,” he gasped up from the floor and she looked down with pity.

“Idiot. I told you. I told you years ago. You already messed around with synthetic empathy, remember? That Scottish cult of universal compassion. Why’d you think coming down off synthetic love would be any better?”

“Stay back. Get the hell away from me.” He tried to get his feet under him, but his limbs weren't cooperating.

“I can help.”

“I know—I know—I know exactly how you help—”

“I'll be gentle. The withdrawals will kill you.”

“I’d rather die, Zee. I’d rather—”

The words broke into a whimper, small and hurt in ways he hadn't let himself be in decades. The truth still pounded in his skull.

“You’re in pain,” she said, soft and careful.

“I don’t have anything else!” he spat. “Don’t take it away—there’s nothing else left. This. You and me? I fucked up. I always fuck up, but I’m defined by the carnage I leave behind. You can’t—”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’ve pulled myself together before. I can do it again. Please, Zee. Listen to me. I don’t want your help.”

He searched for an opening, the right word, the right Name. He had one that might fit—sharp and precise—but it was too specific. Useless without the right moment—

“No, John. I’m tired of watching you choose to be in pain. Enough. I love you, but you need to—”

*mlac nwod*

The name he'd been preparing to use against her slipped out between his teeth. A name her father called her, uttered in the wake of her spell, small gasping and confused.

"Piccola?"

His eyes were glassy and unfocused. Vulnerable and disorientated like he couldn't comprehend what had just happened. It was an accident but that was perhaps the only way he could have said the name to get it to actually work.

Zatanna Zatara heard an accusation in her father’s voice and knew instantly she had crossed a line.

She vanished from the house as quickly as Diana had.

 

---

 

John Constantine sat in the burnt shell of his own kitchen with his pain oddly distant.

Still there but numb.

Far away.

Like painkillers for the soul.

He was still upset. He just didn’t care. A silvery, cool cloud lingered in his mind. He was Calm.

He still remembered Epiphany. Could remember details of the last 20 years, even pieces that might have been missing before. 

The day they met.

The real day they met—the werewolf incident—crystal clear for the first time ever.

Good.

That was good.

She could have taken everything. But he couldn’t know if it was really all there. Would never know if the pieces were put back in the same order, or if he’d been rearranged into someone new who couldn’t tell the difference.

He wanted to be angry about that. Wanted to yell. Wanted to cry.

The feelings were there—just frustratingly out of his reach, buried under a rapidly growing mossy apathy.

He didn’t say a thing. Didn’t seem like there was any point.

 

Care for nothing.

 

The words rose up inside him, icy and immovable. Something that had always been and always would be.

His mental barriers were down.

They’d tried to help.

They’d both tried to help.

No one knew that the fifteen years of slow alchemical poisoning was the least of what he had locked inside his head.

 

Hope for nothing.

 

This was one of the things he’d made himself forget. 

Tried to forget.

Burning eyes behind a burning sky. Burning words that singed entire galaxies to barren, featureless gray ash.

The most soul-crushing intrusive thought ever conceived: a cold mathematical truth at the center of the universe.

Glacial. Inevitable.

Carefully calculated weaponized ennui.

 

There is no escape.

 

From behind the twisted wreckage that might have once been his kitchen countertop, a hunched simian form emerged.

Detective Chimp.

That made sense, the calm part of his mind supplied. It was a Magic crime scene. They’d call the magic crime scene expert. No one knew mystic forensics like Bobo. He would know what happened. He was the best of them.

“Feeling better?” the chimpanzee in a green suit and deerstalker cap asked.

“Yes.”

Yes, he was. Distant, bland, gray in the soul—but objectively better.

 

Care for nothing.

 

“Do you think you can answer some questions for me, John?”

“Yes.”

Something was off with the detective. Something cautious in his tone. Constantine was pretty sure they'd never been on a first name basis.

“Did you ward this building?”

“Yes.”

The detective frowned, making too much eye contact.

“Did you live here?”

“Yes.”

“Did you live here with someone else?”

 

Hope for nothing.

 

He tried to focus on the question. It was harder than it should’ve been.

“Yes.”

“Family?”

That wasn’t real eye contact was it? The Detective was studying him.

“Yes.” Maybe he had something on his face?

“Can you tell me what happened here?”

He knew.

Something had followed him home.

Again.

Just like Kit. Just like Emma. Just like Mgwishu and Rich and Heather and Oscar and AngieDanicaPhoebe and and and—

 

Care for nothing.

 

—and the details didn’t matter. Dead love. Rinse and repeat.

He said nothing. It was all too big for words.

A brittle silence grew.

John looked up at the mangled stovetop. How many times had he asked her not to brew in the house?

Detective Chimp walked over to the stove and examined the remains of the pot.

“Would you like to know what I think happened?”

John was sure now; there was real concern in the detective's voice. He couldn't quite piece together why.  Worse— this was— Bobo was leading a witness. This wasn't like him at all.

“Yes.”

“There was an alchemist in the house. A young woman. Someone you took great care to conceal. Possibly a wife or daughter. Possibly the individual Wonder Woman was asking after. Late on the evening of November fifteenth, she was brewing. The individual at the door was familiar—either a past acquaintance or something well-informed enough to wear one’s form. She let them past the wards. They talked.”

Bobo ran a finger through the soot and rubbed the residue against his thumb.

“There are four distinct layers of magic in this fire. The accelerant was hellfire, though the signature is obscured by a second—the alchemy on the stovetop. Beneath that, your wards keeping everything rather impressively contained. As if you planned for this exact scenario.”

“Yes.”

Detective Chimp hadn't asked a question and clearly hadn't expected an answer but that one was almost easy.

Of course he’d warded the house against hellfire. London didn’t like Hell or fire.

The city was vulnerable without its person.

He wasn’t good enough— would never be good enough—but he could at least try not to break anything while waiting for Map to be replaced by someone better.

“It’s faint,” Bobo continued, “but I’ve got a good nose for these things. Sandwiched between the brimstone, the cloves, and your tobacco-laced ozone, there’s a whiff of something sexual in the energy here. Focus. Can you feel it?”

Oh.

“Yes.”

“I believe your family member was killed by an agent of hell. A succubus or incubus. Cut off from hell for the hellfire to be diluted enough to leave behind any remnant of the apartment at all. Possibly one she knew.”

“Yes.”

 

Hope for noth—

 

He focused . Nothing really mattered much but that just meant he felt next to nothing as he raised a hand and pointed off a little to the left.

“John?”

There was that first name again. Like they were suddenly friends. He probably had used the detective's first name at some point though. Bobo sounded too much like an insult for him not to have used it as one. 

“Is that where the monster went?”

“Yes. Twenty-six meters.”

The extra words felt like running a marathon.

Detective Chimp startled. “It’s in the building!?”

 

Care for noth—

 

She.

Not it.

She.

That mattered.

“Yes.”

Bobo looked from the door to Constantine, back again.

“I’m not sure if I should leave you alone right now.”

“Yes?”

“Exactly. But—” He growled in frustration, then drew a massive magic sword from the scabbard on his back.

The Sword of Night. Another way to compel Truth. Or it had been. Before the chimp broke it.

Odd.

When did everyone he worked with get so hung up on honesty?

 

A warm, hairy hand rested on his shoulder. He wasn’t sure when it got there.

 

“I don’t know what’s going on in that head of yours,” Bobo said, “but if anyone can pull through something like this, it’s you. Try not to hurt yourself by thinking about it too hard.”

 

There is no escape.

 

Bobo jammed his warm green hat down onto John’s head, ear flaps covering against the frigid night air.

“Wait for me, John. Don’t wander off. I’ll be right back.”

And then he was gone.

Oh.

So, the sword wasn’t for him? That was probably good.

John Constantine sat and stared at the kitchen wall.

Maybe he deserved this. Maybe it would finally make Zee happy.

The thought formed on its own and seemed almost solid.

He’d always believed his pain was his fault but maybe—maybe—it could make someone he cared about feel better.

That would be worth it, right?

 

He wasn’t wandering off. He hadn’t moved at all. It wasn’t his fault that the wall in front of him had become an open door.

 

I see you, little thing.

 

It was just a memory. A flashback.

He could tell himself it wasn't real and almost convince himself Darkseid isn’t.

But—

 

Hope for nothing.

 

The Anti-Life Equation is.

Notes:

A small break from format. I normally put these notes in chronological order, but I can hear you screaming over there.

I know a lot of DC fanfiction readers come from cartoons and movies without ever reading the comics. That’s okay—there’s no wrong way to engage with the fandom. But some of you might have an overly simplified, even sanitized, idea of what the Anti-Life Equation is.

Darkseid, the leader of the alien gods of Apokolips, is always searching for this cosmic weapon to destroy all life. It’s easy to imagine it as a bomb, a laser, or even a disease. It’s not. Jack Kirby—one of the greatest comic book creators—made something far more terrifying. Death is part of life, not the opposite of it. Anti-Life is the absence of living. It doesn’t kill your body, just your soul. You just… stop caring.

In the 2014 multiverse crossover, Prime Earth Constantine traveled to Earth-2—a universe that died when Darkseid found his Anti-Life Equation and broadcast it across reality on a loop. The bold text in this chapter are verbatim quotes from that storyline. “Darkseid IS” is often used to show the inevitability of the destruction he seeks. The last line in this chapter subverts that phrase: Darkseid isn’t the true enemy here. Anti-Life IS.

John Constantine has canonically survived exposer to the Anti-life equation. Now he's having flashbacks about a subliminal message to give up.

Got it? Okay, back to the beginning.

“Shield sorrow” is the Amazon name for PTSD in the Elseworlds series DC Bombshells. It’s surprisingly well written for something marketed as gooner bait. John spends most of this title as a literal bunny and a cute accessory to Zatanna’s retro pin-up look

Hellblazer: India is my exact “inciting mind-control moment,” but John first met Epiphany while under the influence of a potion she made to mimic lycanthropy. Terry Greaves was using it in a plot to control the other London crime families. John barely remembered the incident, but I think it says a lot about Epiphany that she fell for the literal werewolf threatening her life—not the clever man she later manipulated into marriage. I guess they had “monsterfucker” energy in common.

Reminder: Zatanna was lobotomizing villains during Identity Crisis and still justifies mental manipulation under what she considers “necessary circumstances.” I think a lot of Miss Martian's charactor development in Young Justice was influenced by this story too, if that cartoon is more familiar.

And finally, no matter what Red Robin thinks, Detective Chimp is the world’s greatest detective. He’s the one Batman calls when he needs a consultant.

Edit: the bullets are broken and AO3 won't let me fix them. :-(

Chapter 46: Small Details

Summary:

In which a different Zatara has a few things to say on the subject of John Constantine

The House of Secrets was about to start a fight out of boredom.

They weren’t coming back. 

The narrative had abandoned it in an aggressively boring corner of the world, and the main characters weren’t coming back.

Mr. and Mrs. Manson were exactly the kind of people the House would have eaten alive back in the nineties.

• Self-absorbed, selfish parents. 
• A disabled elder they failed to treat as fully human. 
• A daughter with one foot out the door, pulling away for so long that her inevitable disappearance from their lives would barely make a ripple.

They had no secrets. They barely had a story. The fun was happening elsewhere.

Secrets considered a technicality in its Charter.

Daniel Fenton had killed his own clones, his siblings, and justified it as mercy.

That was true, wasn’t it?

John Constantine had died thousands of times at the hands of someone he loved.

Also true.

And now Mystery’s Caretaker had stumbled into a cluster of fatalistic thought that looked suspiciously like a second key:

Self-sacrifice. A willingness to suffer and die if it might make someone else happy.

It wasn’t theft.

It was borrowing.

A trade, really. It had nothing to do with Fenton feeding the House of Mystery first, even though Secrets had been so helpful. Of course not. This wasn’t selfishness or pettiness.

If you really thought about it, it was being considerate.

Secrets left Amity Park for a half-burnt interior wall in Brixton.

It tried to steal a Caretaker from the other House.

The Caretaker didn’t cooperate.

It was a good effort, but even at his lowest, John Constantine was still more pragmatic murderer than willing victim.

 

---

 

Zachary Zatara loved the lights. 

When the spotlight drowned out the crowded theater and reduced his audience to shadowy gasps of awe and delight, he didn’t have to think of them as people. 

He was a magician in every sense of the word, and he knew there was an endless well of Belief waiting to be tapped in the darkness behind the blinding high beams. Some nights, he could almost feel the boundaries between him and his audience as something tangible. 

If 'all magic has a price' than this was one he would gladly pay. The devotion from those faceless masses almost felt like love.

He told himself he wasn’t chained to the stage— told himself that it elevated him. Mostly, he believed that.

It was an empty thing but he loved the crowds as much as they loved him. He just hated the stupid, ugly, petty people in them. That's what the lights were for.

His body was sore but buoyed by the bubbling contentment of a good night. His face was cramped from smiling and applause still followed his encore as he left the stage, weaving through the cramped backstage corridors to the dressing room this venue provided. He’d been on tour so long, he wasn’t even sure what city he was in. Ottawa, maybe? Oswego? Something with an O.

It didn’t really matter.

He shouldered open the door. Sitting at his dressing-room mirror was the disheveled mess of his crying cousin.

Zachary had to take a moment to be sure she was real. She was, but a detail set his teeth on edge and made him doubt his senses for a moment:

Her makeup was running.

It shouldn't do that.

It shouldn’t be able to do that.

He knew she had a spell—*krow sehtolc*— and he always gave her shit for it. Pure vanity. A literal magical transformation sequence. It meant the magically applied eyeliner shouldn’t be able to follow her tears down her face. Not unless it wasn’t her—

—or unless, he supposed, she really believed it should.

Damn.

If something had happened—if someone had done something to her—

He watched her in tight silence for another half a heartbeat before deciding on a course of action and closing the door behind him.

“Who do I need to kill?”

She gave a wet, broken chuckle and rubbed ineffectually at her face. “No one. It’s nothing. I just—” Her voice wobbled. “I think I might have really screwed up this time, Zach.”

It wasn’t nothing. It wasn’t no one. Zachary had never been more certain of anything in his life. The hard set of his jaw must have made his thoughts obvious because she winced and turned away.

“I saw John.”

That explained it. 

It said a lot about his cousin that he didn’t have to ask if it was John-the-stagehand, or John-the-Green-Lantern, or even Jon-the-young-Superman.

He knew exactly who had made her mascara run.

“I thought he was dead?”

“He got better. He’s really good at—at—” she shook her head. “I did the thing, Zach. The thing we talked about. I—um—I told him how to be.”

Zachary suddenly wished she was crying in someone else’s dressing room. Anyone else’s. Dr. Fate. One of the Martians. Hell— Raven would’ve been better for this conversation. He was the wrong person so many levels.

He couldn’t do what she could. His power had more limits. So long as it was inanimate, he was as capable as any homo magi but living things were complicated. He could barely manifest a dove long enough for it to fly across the stage. He couldn’t change people. That was beyond him.

More importantly, if he could, he was pretty sure he would.

But she was here, so he had to at least pretend to understand.

“I’m sure you had a very good reason.”

“I promised myself I wouldn’t. Never again. Not unless he wanted me to, but—”

“But?”

“But Wonder Woman was knocking down that house of cards he calls a psyche, and I could feel him starting to spiral. I could smell it in the air. That heat—it smelled like—” Her words dissolved into sobs.

Zach felt the bottom drop out of his chest and mentally finished the thought for her. He could imagine what it would smell like if someone with that much demons blood lost control.

It would smell like Wintersgate.

It would smell like cooking meat.

It would smell like Giovanni.

“Oh, cuz.”

He knew he should believe her, but for some reason, Zachary doubted the wizard had actually been on the verge of spontaneously combusting. He wasn't there, so he didn't know what made him think that John would have had things under control. Respect, maybe? 

It wouldn’t have mattered if Constantine had actually been slipping towards a flashpoint or not. Zatanna would have been triggered by just the possibility of watching someone burn again.

“I needed him to calm down. I didn’t even move anything! I just wanted to put the fire out! But—but—”

“But he didn’t want you to. Your ex is such a repressed asshole he’d rather die than accept help, and given the choice between his feelings and his charred corpse, you broke a promise and now you're scared of yourself? Is that it?”

Zachary Zatara didn’t really see what the problem was. He wouldn’t have had nearly so much restraint. If he had the power to make people like him, he’d use it all the time. Breakups sucked. He wouldn’t have let a lover leave in the first place.

Did that make him a monster? Probably. But she didn’t need to know that.

He stared at the weeping woman and tried to puzzle out how to make her stop being his problem. He awkwardly wrapped her in a gangly hug that was all elbows.

“There, there?” He patted her back with gloves hands, wondering if he was doing this right. "You wouldn't be this upset if you didn't care."

He knew he wouldn't be.

She sniffled, and he sighed.

Like it or not, she was his problem. She was family. He was pretty sure that’s what family was, taking turns being each other's problem until someone died. He didn't have many people like that. Neither did she.

*aocoC?* he offered.

“Sure. Cocoa sounds wonderful.”

In addition to the chocolate, the mugs he produced had marshmallows, whipped cream and little red sprinkles on top. Zachary was proud of his craftsmanship on the nonverbal embellishment to the spell, but Zee didn’t seem to notice.

She was so much better at this that she probably wouldn’t have even needed to think about adding extra ingredients.

“I can still try to kill him for you, if you like?”

“No, Zach.”

“All right. Just thought I’d offer.”

 

---

 

From the remains of his flat, John Constantine stared through the open door at the fireplace in the Edwardian sitting room. The building was cold and empty but the air coming out of the door was warm.

He screwed his eyes shut and hummed a note. Not a song. Just a C. You could always start at C. It was the middle of everything.

Well.

It was the middle of the keyboard.

Also, this might have been more of a B-flat.

He tried again. There. That was C.

Or D.

It was something, anyway.

He scraped together the threads of his thoughts into a plan.

 

Care for nothing.

 

He wanted to feel. That was tricky. He’d had a plan for this once, but he didn’t have it anymore. He only had Zatanna’s ocean of calm atop the crushing deep-sea depths of alien ennui.

“You’d be wrong about that plan of yours,” a voice interjected in a wry, joking tone. “Ask and ye shall receive. One decades-old, massively moronic plan coming right up.”

The voice was in his head, but it didn’t sound like him.

“You only got calm? So think calmly, dumbass. Find the room where the emotions live. If you get there, maybe you’ll be able to feel something.”

That accent—American? New Jersey? That should probably be concerning.

“Well, yeah. Auditory hallucinations are almost never a good thing, and I’m always a particularly bad sign. It’s a janky old plan that hasn't held up worth shit. You don’t have much of a mental defense system these days. All well and good to build a voice in your head to listen to and trust when under attack, but you should’ve replaced or updated me decades ago. I was never exactly the voice of comfort and security you wanted me to be, and I’ve only ever been useful in a frontal assault. I kicked Spellbinder’s ass, but I’m damn near useless for the real threats, or we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

 

Hope for noth— “Oh, fuckin'-A! Shut up already.”

 

John wondered who was talking.

“For fuck’s sake. You want to feel something? Try this on for size.”

An image of Nick Necro was suddenly in his face. Younger, hotter, tall-dark-and-dangerous, not-dead Nick Necro.

“Hotter? Really? I guess that’s something. Definitely better than total apathy. I’m flattered your libido’s working, I am—but I’d prefer a little urgency. We aren’t actually going to wait for the monkey, are we? Di and Zee could be back any second.”

Bobo said to wait.

“He’s got a sword, John. Not even a good sword. Ninety percent of the enchantments on that thing are defunct, and the actual metal was crap to begin with because it was supposed to be magic. I expect the poor bastard's already dead.”

John didn’t expect anything. He waited.

Nick’s semitransparent hand waved in front of his face.

“Hellooo? Johnny? Anybody home? Christ. Look, man—ya know the score. Hum a little more. Lean into your 'power of music' or whatever it is you do, and then schlep your ass through the magic door.”

Humming. Right. He’d been humming. His C that might’ve been D.

“You’re really hung up on that, aren’t you?”

Not-Nick whistled a pitch-perfect choir C, cool and bright.

John knew it wasn’t Nick because Nick couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket, let alone hit the C above middle C on the first try.

“You also know I’m not Nick because I told you. I told you just now, ya fuckin' herb. You’ve barely pulled yourself back together enough to activate the mental construct you built to— You know what? Never mind. You’re not listening and I’m just distracting you. Carry on.”

 

Care for noth—  “I said shut it, you egotistical wall of granite!"

 

The ghostly form flipped off a random patch of empty air yelling, "Can’t you see we hummin’ over here?”

Not-Nick turned back to address John again.

“You don’t do anything halfway, do you? We couldn’t work through these mind whammies one at a time? Noooo. Instead of processing the last fifteen years of involuntary marital bliss, you’ve got me trying to drown out the Anti-Life Equation by hollerin’ at it. I can only do that so many times, Johnny, so sing a little song and let's get a move on.”

After several agonizingly long minutes of idle humming, John Constantine pulled his legs under himself and stumbled forward into the House of Secrets.

He and his carefully crafted hallucination began to search the House of Secrets for something he had left in the House of Mystery.

 

---

 

Wonder Woman was in the in the subterranean level of the Justice League outreach center in Washington DC.

She looked up above her at the hanging dragon bones filling the atrium of the hidden JLD headquarters. She formulated a plan. 

There was a zeta tube up there. Two floors below the gift shop and eight floors above the skeleton.

First she was going back to London.

Then she was going be having words with The Mistress of Magic.

Deep down she kicked herself for becoming complacent. She, more than anyone else on the planet, knew that herding the Earth's most powerful magic users into cooperation and collaboration would never be easy.

 

Notes:

100,000k! I am floored, y’all. I honestly didn’t think I had this in me—100,000k and still going strong!

I had some questions a few chapters back about the “diet” of the Houses. Based on House of Secrets: Facade (1996), I think it’s safe to say that yes, they do sometimes get hungry enough to eat people. Especially if Secrets is also the Navidson house. All the embellishment with the keys and those observations about the similarities between caretakers and the type of people they prefer? That’s all me.

Really dragging cousin Zach here. I know I said he was Zee’s brother in an earlier chapter, but I was misremembering. I’ve only ever seen him used as a very minor side character. I know he had a run on Teen Titans where he was depicted as shallow and vain, but honestly, it feels like he’s been written differently by every author who’s ever used him. Zatanna needs someone to try to explain herself to, but the kind of person who would immediately forgive her actions isn’t necessarily going to be a good friend or confidant.

Not-Nick appears in Constantine #13, “Power of the Spellbinder.” He fought off a direct mental attack (from Spellbinder, not Mindwarp—I need to go back and fix that) and guided John through a bit of a vision quest that included discovering Zatanna’s instruction to “be a better person” years prior. This mental defense system was never shown before or after that issue, so I admit to taking some liberties with it. I’m having fun trying to make him sound like he's from Jersey. If I'm bad at it I blame Johns imprecise memory of the man.

Chapter 47: Erstwhile sacrifices

Summary:

In which a hallucination has a few things to say on the subject of John Constantine.

Kirk was trying not to listen. He was all the way on the other side of the cave, and he wasn’t exactly the most welcome guest. Bat, but not Bat-family. He didn’t know what had John bolting off or Batman typing furiously in response. What he did know was that the documentary had been left running.

He didn’t want to hear it. He wanted to focus on attempt fifty-eight. But his hearing was beyond human, and he couldn’t help catching every word of the man-on-the-street accounts. Nuns, groupies, cabbies, journalists and hobos. Praise ranging from “undiscovered rock god” to “absolute shite.”

Then came the screaming.

Then the silence.

And finally, the tinny monologue that put it all into context. That part Kirk understood.

John sounded older on the recording, but it was still him. Still his story. Astra. Newcastle. Terror Elemental. Nergal. But after that—

Kirk’s gut twisted. He really hoped Batman was too distracted, because this was the part he’d never heard before.

“—elemental force of nature—krsht—make life difficult for the bugger—crackle—it was willing to deal. -tsst- I’d allow it to feed on someone once a year. Worst of the—bastard—shhk—deserved whatev—”

Kirk froze. His hands slipped away from the half-drawn sigils, chalk dust flaking under his claws. He’d killed before, sure—but never on purpose. Now he was both scared and deeply conflicted.

Batman wasn’t known for measured responses. Man-Bat would know. But Batman was still typing, shoulders tight, his cadence unbroken. He would have stopped if he'd heard it, right? The confession was faint, buried under static.

Maybe—maybe Batman hadn’t noticed that a member of the Justice League Dark had just admitted to human sacrifice?

Kirk’s ears flicked and folded back against his skull. He swallowed, heart pounding and hoping—faintly, desperately—that John was okay. Wherever he was.

Through the speakers the faint notes of a guilty conscience humming Venus of the hard sell played in counterpoint to Batman trying to track Detective Chimp chasing a feminine shadow across the city.

 

---

 

The House of Secrets preened as the Caretaker crossed the threshold and—

Wait. What?

What was he doing?

The synchronicity the wizard used to manipulate coincidence and walk between like places. He—he was—

The House was pretty sure he wasn’t allowed to do that.

John Constantine wasn’t really seeing the hallway. Which meant the hallway wasn’t really seeing him either. He took the soft feeling at the back of his head and the soft music on the tip of his tongue and used them to build a soft place under his feet. Without even thinking, he laced two similar locations together and drifted between them.

It felt intimate—too intimate—when the wizard walked down the conjoined hallway toward his destination in the other House. They had never touched like that before.

The House of Mystery noticed instantly. Secrets had tried to pull a dirty trick, and Mystery was furious.

Didn’t matter. They were touching.

 

---

 

There is no escape.

 

“Of course there’s escape, you shmuck,” Nick argued, rolling his eyes at a random wall. His voice was rough, frayed with exhaustion.

It hadn't been that long but he looked wrecked—rumpled hair falling into his face, dark circles carved under his eyes. Indicators of how badly he was losing the argument. He had nearly given up on talking over the intrusive thoughts, but he still had energy to insult them. His hand waved dismissively as though shooing away a fly.

“There’s always escape,” he sighed, dragging a hand down his face. “He fucking escaped. You’re just an echo, and I’m just a memory, and he just needs to remember how we pulled it off.”

 

Hope for nothing.

 

John sagged to the floor of the conjoined hallway under the weight of Anti-Life. His knees buckled, and he slumped until his back hit the baseboard. His fingers fumbled clumsily for a cigarette, breath hitching in his chest. Hopeless.

“Shit. Okay. Fuck. We tried it your way, but we both know there’s another reason I look like this.” The lighter clicked once, twice. “Sometimes the transformative power of song is bull. If you wanted compassion and love you would’ve picked Braden. You remember Braden, right?” Not-Nick's laugh was brittle and bitter. “The one dead ex who actually went to heaven?”

 

Care for nothing.

 

Not-Nick sighed softly, the sound heavy with weariness, and knelt beside him.

Translucent fingers ghosted over John’s hand, steadying his trembling grip on the lighter. A tiny flame flared, reflected in John’s glassy eyes.

“I taught you a different set of coping mechanisms, Johnny,” Not-Nick murmured. His tone was almost tender, though his gaze was sharp.

John leaned toward him instinctively, shoulders hunched, cigarette forgotten. The dream took over. Fire dancing in his right-hand grip They moved together and held his left wrist above the light at the hottest point of the flame. John hissed through his teeth, eyes watering, but held it there. Ten agonizingly slow counts. He jerked, shoving the hot metal against his skin. Flesh sizzled. Tears stung his eyes but he held it there until it cooled. Burnt tissue stuck, pulled, tore when he pulled it away. He yelped as it finally came free, clutching his hand to his chest.

Not-Nick’s grin spread wide, manic with monstrous pride. “Good,” he whispered, leaning close, breath hot against John’s ear. “Feel it. Don’t compartmentalize the pain away. Belief is powerful, and it’s hard not to believe in suffering. Lesson one: self-harm is the best sacrifice.” He tilted his head, smirk sharp as a blade. “Sure, you can hurt someone else, but that has diminishing returns. Front-load the price, cash out up front, you get the better deal long-term. Like a used car—” he shrugged with mock casualness “—lump sum payment hurts, but it’s the loans that bite your ass.”

That wasn't lesson number one. Lesson number one was- he couldn't remember. Names maybe. Or misdirection? Whatever it was came first though. He was sure something else came first. Something before the pain.

His eyes screwed shut, trying to remember.

Phantom fingertips ruffled his hair again. The voice above him softened to a whisper.

“You’re doing so good for me Johnny. Now try again.”

John leaned into the caress, clutching his blistered wrist.

“Get up, sweetheart.” Nick’s voice dropped low, almost coaxing. Then it hardened, hissed against his ear. “Get up. Get. Up. Get up or we start breaking fingers.”

 

Hope for nothing.

 

John let his head loll sideways against the wall, eyes half-lidded. Maybe he could just sit. Just a while longer.

“God fucking damn it!” Not-Nick exploded, flinging his hands into the air. His voice cracked, furious. “That was my A-game!”

Suddenly, he lunged, kissing—Hard. Desperate. Panicked. Teeth clashing, lips bruising—hungry for a reaction, any reaction at all.

When he pulled back, younger, hotter, Not-Nick was gone. In his place stood a younger, hotter, Not-John.

They could taste blood on his lips.

“Okay,” Not-John panted, voice dry with sarcasm. “Tailoring to the threat. Trying to trigger memory of how we got out of this the first time. Smart.” He gestured vaguely, blood dripping from a knife in his chest. “Just maybe not the best time to jumble me up, especially when—”

 

You will be unmade.

 

“—oh good.” His laugh was short, bitter. “It’s escalating.”

Not-John looked like he should be playing acoustic guitar in coffee-shops, cleanshaven in a plaid shirt and vest. Beautiful—except for the knife buried in his chest, blood soaking through his shirt.

“So,” he coughed, smirking through crimson-stained lips. “You escaped Darkseid by murdering a multidimensional version of yourself and making us forget about it.” His eyes gleamed, mocking. “On the bright side—we’re learning so much today!”

John’s burnt wrist throbbed. He really needed a word for self-murder if he was going to keep doing it so often. He flexed his hand, winced. Auto-defenestration?

"No. That implies a long fall. Stay on topic. What’s so special about this guy that makes him more useful than the psycho BDSM exboyfriend?”

Husband.

Not-John flinched at the thought. His voice turned bitter. “I think we can call that annulled. Just because you tantrically linked your energies forever doesn’t mean he wasn’t a unicorn-hunting bastard.”

It had been good. Special.

“Yes,” Not-John said flatly, wiping blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. “The unicorn always feels special. At first. Then the power dynamics shift, and whoever’s got the most fragile ego takes the unicorn out back and shoots it. Then, if you’ve literally the worst luck—” he waved vaguely “—they shoot it roughly twenty thousand more times." The imaginary man rubbed his imaginary head as if he had an imaginary headache. "Communication is important for a relationship. Repeated murder is what experts sometimes call a hint.” He leaned forward, eyes narrowing. “Now. What do we know about Hipster Constantine?”

The young Constantine of Earth-2 hadn’t been this pushy.

“I’m sure if he’d known us longer, he’d have gotten there,” the hallucination quipped.

Earth-2 John had been exactly as old as he looked. Born In the late 80s died in the twenty-teens. In a world with women's lib and reproductive healthcare, his mother lived, and his twin had died a hero's death in her majesty's service overseas. His parents had stayed together, and his father had, through therapy and grief counseling and community support, somehow learnet to be a decent person. This John had never used magic. He'd been in a moderately successful band and a moderately successful marriage. Every single one of his friends had lived. Loved. Stood by him right up to the apocalypse and beyond. 

He’d had the best possible world. 

The twisted burnt out half insane wreck of a wizard that showed up on his door vowing to save him and everything he loved had scared him shitless.

He’d been right to be scared.

There should have been another solution. If they'd had more time. Been smarter, faster, more willing—

A price had to be paid. 

Theye'd kissed and younger, happier John hadn’t made it to thirty-five.

Afterwards his murderer had forced himself to keep breathing and moving and not breaking under the oppressive gaze of Darkseid himself just to make sure that sacrifice was worth something.

“Ok. Okay, good. Let's do that then. And not just me. Him. Whatever. If you can’t live for you, live for them. The ones who didn’t make it. Get up, get up, get up. Or none of the poor bastards you sacrificed along the way will have been worth it. You’ve always cared more for your friends than your fingers anyway. Live, you sorry sack of self-pity. Live. For. Them.”

 

There is no escape.

 

Escape. John Constantine looked at his alternate self and remembered an important detail about his escape from earth-2. Something he hadn't been able to think about properly since - since the cup of tea Epiphany made him afterwards. She'd papered over a promise, hidden the memory— she'd probably been helping drown out the Anti-life too.

But now he was calm, and he knew what was true and he rememberd. He'd used human sacrifice to fuel a spell that moved nearly everyone who mattered to the dead man from that dying world into his own. The spell had been ragged and unstable and while most of them had made it, some had fallen off the edges and into the space between.

Before it had even a sliver of green— he'd fumbled his desperate rescue attempt and a dozen or more innocent people had been tossed directly into the bloody gash in reality.

A between-place most sources referred to as the Bleed. 

Kneeling on a beach in Dover with someone who looked very much like his father pressing a gun to his head, He— he'd promised to look for them. 

No.

He'd promised to look for her.

 

There is no Hope 

 

Hope. A small but audacious thought. He latched on to it in defiance of the pounding voice telling him not to. Not a happy thought. It wouldn't have worked if it had been a happy thought. He could just barely grasp it in his mind because it was so painfully sharp.

Whatever else it was, it was still hope-adjacent.

They'd only spoken a few words to each other and almost all of them were broken promises and accusations.

She didn't love him—

She didn't want him—

She didn't know him—

She would never ever forgive him—

But it occurred to him that somewhere in the unknowable vastness of the infinite realms there might still be a woman whose son he'd killed. Someone who might have once been—

Mary Constantine.

His hallucination gave a wet gasp past the knife in its chest, “Bloody hell. Yeah, that would do it. Screw the dead. Let's live for the living. We've got promises to keep.”

 

Care for nothing 

 

Care. The memory of a version of a long dead mother he'd never met wasn't a good thought, but he managed to care just enough to keep them moving deeper into the House. 

 

Notes:

The suffering continues with no resolution to any plot threads whatsoever.

References include a bunch of stuff I've already cited so I'm just going to pull these from memory and fact check later:
Hellblazer: Newcastle Calling
JLD: Young Bastards
Forever Evil
Constantine: Apocalypse Road

Notes:

Shoot me a line in the comments if you have any questions, constructive criticism, or just want to say hello. Some of the explanations from the comments section have been added to specific chapter end notes. I will keep updating them as readers continue to let me know what is confusing in the story.