John Constantine sparked the end of his Silk Cut and crouched down in front of his bed, now occupied by the dismembered and very much deceased body of one Mattie Marsters. She’d met John through Chas the night before, one of Chandler’s fellow taxi drivers, and her death note had been signed the moment she’d shook Constantine’s hand. John pressed down on the mattress with two fingers, gauging how deep the pool of blood had soaked.
“We’ll have to dump the bed, too, I’m afraid,” he said before standing, “no salvaging it. Shame, I loved the box-springs.”
“How’d this happen, John?” Chas asked. “And for that matter, where the bloody hell were you while it was happening? If you say the bog I’ll right throttle you one…”
Constantine sighed, an exhale of smoke filtering up from his nostrils to the ceiling. “Whatever did this, mate, is a nasty fucker indeed. I was right outside, Chas, and the bastard skinned her alive in a matter of bleedin’ minutes. Now I find out the whole reason she died was because she made the poor decision to snog with me, that every bird I’ve ever loved is on some demon’s hit-list, and that my only lead is a twenty-seven year old girl with mental problems.”
Chas smirked. “So it’s all business as usual, then.”
John feigned a smile to counter his friend’s, keeping up appearances as Jack-the-Lad no matter the situation. “Too right, Chas…too right.”
“Uncle John?” a girl’s voice said from the hallway, brushing past Chas like he didn’t exist as she entered the room. Mercury was her name, the aforementioned head-case with a psychic lightning bolt running up her spine. Constantine had shagged her mum ages ago, and she was dead now too. The Constantine credo, it turned out, was ‘love hath no fury like a demon horde’.
“Yeah, Merc,” John answered, “got some questions needed answering. Like how come you popped back into me life right before this girl met her maker?”
“I told you,” Mercury replied, “I had a vision in Paris, your former loves being snuffed out like candle-flame, one by one. Me mum was only the first, but I didn’t think they’d call your attention quite so quickly.”
Constantine scowled whilst stubbing his cigarette butt out in the blood atop the mattress. “Their fuckin’ mistake then...”
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#2
MAR 14 |
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Children of the Grave, Part Two:
“From the Cradle”
“From the Cradle”
Her name was Helen, and she owed her life to John Constantine.
Blinded in one eye from a nasty infection and the loving touch of an abusive twat, Helen wondered how she’d allowed her life to change in such drastic ways. It was so simple when it started, a brunette spitfire that loved life and refused to take shite off anyone. Barely into her twenties when she dated the oh-so-charming scouse named John, his devil-may-care attitude and dismissive emotional distance attracting her like light to the flies. It was a front, of course, one he put up like a wall to keep people from getting too close, but she could see right through it. She would spy it in his eyes or in the tone of his voice while they were alone – the kindness that he tried so hard to hide from the world.
Life became cold and hard after he left her, breaking up with her for some chippie living abroad named Emma. To this day she’s not sure how she wound up peddling her ass, addicted to heroin provided by the twat that eventually took her eye along with her dignity and nearly her life. Johnny had come to her rescue then, like a knight in nicotine-stained armor, saving her from the life she’d brought upon herself.
She placed fingers to the patch that covered her eye, and remarked quietly about how it took the loss of half her vision for her to see the mess she’d made of herself. “Johnny Con-Job,” she said with a smile, “I missed you, you wee louse.”
“I missed you, too,” the voice hissed from the bathroom door.
Standing in front of the tub, Helen disrobed to show her naked back and bottom to her man. Sure he wasn’t how she remembered, the smell being the most distracting new aspect, but all that mattered was that he’d finally come back to her. She was going to be his until the end of time.
“Your love is my weapon,” he repeated like a mantra, his vocal calling card.
When the police found her body, it appeared to all concerned that the young woman had swallowed a hand grenade…she’d been ripped apart seemingly from the inside out. All that were present at the unveiling of her corpse refused to report to work in the following weeks, the horror of their discovery haunting their waking moments.
And somewhere between Earth and Hell, the creature responsible flashed a smile of razors.
“Constantine, you soddin’ wank stain!”
Watford, his face squat like a constipated bulldog, hunched over the soggy chips and watered down lager, his chubby fingers picking through the waste laughingly described by the pub’s patrons as food. Wasn’t fit for consumption by an animal, let alone a police inspector of his caliber. Naturally, the choice of meeting place hadn’t been left up to him.
“Shut yer hole, Watford,” Constantine ordered, in the knowledge enough to refrain from taking part in his companion’s struggle, “unless you got something to say other than complaints.”
“What’s got me curious,” Watford offered, “is just how coincidental it is that the morning we find a butchered girl in Soho is the same morning John fuckin’ Constantine calls me up asking about butchered girls. What’s the connection, you grifter fuck?”
Constantine lit his cigarette, following up with a puff of carcinogens blown right in the copper’s portly face. “First off,” he answered, “watch yer bleedin’ mouth ‘fore I sew it up for you. Second, I’m the one that called in the dead chippie you found in Soho. The girl was killed in me flat; wouldn’t do good to have it raided by insecure nit-wits like you, would it?”
“And it all comes into focus, it does,” Watford replied, shoveling a handful of chips into his mouth.
“I think someone’s targeting me,” Constantine continued, “or more specifically, targeting all the girls that flashed me their vertical grins, if you catch me meaning. How many other girls you found torn apart like Marsters?”
“One turned up in Brixton, her head ripped off her shoulders,” Watford answered. “Another in Chelsea with her innards on the outside, wrapped around her neck like a bloody wreath.”
“Their names, Watford,” John commanded, his patience growing thinner with each heavily-breathed word from the copper’s mouth.
“Now, what kind of inspector would I be if I were to give out sensitive information like that to a civvy, Constantine?” Watford asked, tongue firmly lodged in his cheek.
“Should I remind you, and maybe your superiors as well,” John countered, cigarette pointed firmly at his companion, “just how you got your name, Watford? Might be a curious story, like, for those people I saved yer soddin’ hide from back then.” Watford sighed; his shoulders slumped in his seat. He was defeated, as always, because of the god damned favor. “You owe me one,” no more frightening words had ever passed through Constantine’s lips.
“S’what I fuckin’ thought, piggy,” Constantine said. “Now be a good lad and oink oink for me.”
“Don’t you worry, luv. John’s a good mate – hell, he’s me best mate – and he’ll get this lot sorted out for you before you can say ‘Bob’s me uncle’. Promise, I do.”
Mercury sat in the back of Chas’ taxi, her legs pulled up close to her chest with her arms wrapped around her ankles. She was a million miles away from London, only her physical body residing in the cab. It was spooky, Chas had to admit, but he’d seen far spookier in his lifetime. Usually it was because of Constantine, but he couldn’t deny that when things went sideways on him there was no one better than John to have in his corner.
So what if Renee, his wife, hated Constantine and everything he said. She just didn’t understand that Chas stayed with his mate not out of some misguided obligation, but because that’s what mates did. Sure he owed John his life, his bloody soul even, but she’d argue that it wasn’t a good enough reason for him to tempt old man death on a nightly basis. No, he’d answer her, that’s what friends do for each other, and fuck you if you don’t agree.
The back door to the taxi opened with a fierce tug, allowing a withered and worn-down Constantine to plop down on the leather seat. “Fire it up, Chas,” he said with a wiggle of his index finger, “I got what I needed from the tosser.”
The taxi jerked into motion with a changing of its gears and engaging of its accelerator. Mercury hadn’t moved, still withdrawn into herself while her mind wandered the ether, but John hadn’t the time nor inclination to wait on her. “Oi, Merc!” he shouted, snapping his fingers in the young girl’s face. She gasped, eyes widened like a doe in headlights, and the muscles of her body finally unclenched. She fell sideways, head into Constantine’s lap, sobbing like a lawn sprinkler in summertime.
“Oh...John,” Mercury cried, wiping her eyes with his necktie, “I went looking for me Mum’s soul, to ask her who killed her. I couldn’t find her anywhere, she’s not in Heaven and she’s not in Hell! Where is she?”
“I’ve got some theories, luv,” Constantine answered as he rubbed her head, stroking her stringy blonde hair between his fingers, “and you were right, Marj and Mattie aren’t the only ones this fucker’s done in. Chas, you remember Helen, the gal we saved from the pimp ‘bout ten years past?”
“Aye, yeah,” Chas replied, though it took a moment to realize what his friend was implicating. “Aw, don’t tell me she’s dead. We went through hell and back for her, shame to see it didn’t stick.”
“It was the final nail in the coffin, Chas,” Constantine continued, “this just went from coincidental deaths to someone with a righteous vendetta. Looks like I’ll have to break out me little black book and make me up a list of all the birds I’ve loved before.”
“Er, right, John,” Chandler began cautiously, his eyes flitting to the rear-view mirror from the road, “back when we was lads, didn’t you make it with Renee? If this tosspot’s killing yer ex-intimates, should I be worried like?”
John smirked. “I doubt this fucker’s information extends that far back, mate,” he answered. “I wouldn’t worry, trust me.”
Chas nodded in agreement and returned his eyes to the road. John hated lying to the big git, but what was he supposed to say? That his wife, the mother of his daughter, was now on some death list because John Constantine once stuck his prick in her? John may have been a bastard, but he wasn’t a total fucking bastard.
He looked down at his lap, realizing that Mercury had fallen asleep on him. She’d grown up in the near-two-decades since he last saw her, but she still had that creepy innocence about her that she had as a child. She was both sage and naïve at the same time, a contradiction with blonde hair and perk tits. He’d always looked back on his time with Marj and Merc with fondness, and now the cold reality of his present life had come screeching in with bald tires to crash violently with the past.
If there was one fortunate side to this conspiracy against him, it was that most of the girls that had shared his bed had died after catching bad cases of Constantine Luck. There was Emma, killed by the Brujeria, and Isabel, who was done in by Joshua Wright a few years back. Who did that leave? There was Kit, of course, living up in Belfast last he’d heard. Dani had moved back to the States. Rose was there, too, probably still chained to that sodding tree in Doglick. Shit, Zatanna Zatara, was she still in San Francisco or off pissing about with super-heroes again?
Then there was Ellie, who opened up a huge can of worms all on her own. She was a demon, a succubus sex demon in fact, with a grudge held against him. Could she be the one behind this, or was it too petty even for her? Constantine dismissed the idea immediately, deciding that the perpetrator would almost have to be a male considering the violence of the attacks. Still, if not the attacker would she then be a potential victim? Fuck it, Ellie was more than capable of handling herself if it came to that.
The final question was whether the bastard would target the one-night stands, the single note trollops whose names John couldn’t even recollect. Not enough impact there, he decided, and what would be the point? Still, he couldn’t help but think there was someone he’d overlooked, someone forgotten amidst the tempest of the last twenty years.
It was this forgotten name that would eventually prove to be his undoing.
“What the fuck!”
Shocka Smythe shot up from his couch, his head suddenly and inexplicably drenched with water haphazardly thrown onto him while he slept. He wasn’t fast nor clever enough to remember the flick-knife hidden under the middle cushion until it was too late – if they’d wanted him dead, he’d have had no opportunity to argue his case. When his vision focused and cleared with a swipe of water from his eyes, he saw that the person standing over him brought the potential for a fate far worse than death.
“Wake up, Shocka,” John Constantine ordered, dropping the empty plastic cup to the floor. “We need to have ourselves a wee chat.”
“Shit, man,” Smythe responded, toweling his hair with a t-shirt that had been tossed over the back of the couch, “couldn’t you think of a more peaceful way to wake me up?”
“You got off easy; I contemplated taking a piss on you.” Constantine grabbed a nearby chair and spun it in front of the couch, taking a seat on the chair’s reverse, arms resting on the seat-back. “The bird that got her head off in Brixton, how’d you hear about that?”
“Heard it from a guy who heard it from a guy, that’s all,” Shocka swore. He began to stand, but stopped when Constantine raised his hand. As he lowered his hand, Smythe returned to his seat on the couch, unable to help himself from obeying. “Look, I didn’t fucking kill her, if that’s what you’re–”
“Never crossed me mind,” John interrupted, “but I need to borrow a few things. Can’t rightly guarantee they’ll return in one piece, though. You don’t mind, of course.”
“Of-of course,” Smythe stammered, “take whatever you need, man.”
“Glad to see you’re willing to help, Shocka,” Constantine said with a grin plastered across his face. “Now, pack your bags and feed yer bloody fish. We’ll be gone for a while, most likely.”
Shocka’s jaw dropped open. “What, I can’t leave! I’ve got shit here I can’t just drop!”
“Come now, mate,” John countered, “think about it, you going on a mission with the John Constantine? Yer mystical rep will be made, son.”
Mercury stood and stretched her arms above her head, working out the kinks in her back caused from sleeping in the cramped backseat of a taxi. She was ashamed, embarrassed at letting herself break down in front of John like some wee little girl. All he needed to do to finish her off was to pat her head and offer her a lolli-pop. The thought made her wince, nose scrunched while she wiped the crust from her eyes.
That was the problem, wasn’t it? It didn’t matter how old she was or how much she’d grown – physically or psychically – Constantine would always see her as the batty child that couldn’t tell her dreams from reality half the time. She saw it in his eyes when he came down the stairs with the new addition to the crew, the patronizing ‘chin up, baby; the grown-ups have got it sorted so you can fuck off home’.
“Merc, this –” John started, only to be cut off by Mercury’s up-turned middle finger.
“Fuck you, Constantine!” she yelled, forcing John to take a step backward in surprise. Chas jumped out of the cab, all three men stunned into silence. “I am not staying behind while you go off on your bloody own to solve this! The bastard killed me mother and I demand bloody vengeful satisfaction!”
“Merc, Jesus wept,” John responded while placing his hands firmly on her shoulders, “you’re me only clue to sort this shite out! I wouldn’t dream of making you piss off. It’s not like you’re in danger or anything; I mean, I may be many things but a pedophile I’m bloody well not.”
Mercury smiled despite herself. “Can I crawl under a bus now?” she asked meekly.
“Right then,” Constantine began, changing the subject as quickly as possible to save her further embarrassment. “Mercury, this is Shocka; he’ll be tagging along on our little hop.”
“Hello,” Shocka waved from beneath the packs of gear strapped to his back, loading him down.
“Chas,” John addressed his friend as the trunk was loaded with their supplies, “I know you can’t travel with us, but you’re still up for driving us to the airport, right?”
“Our Geraldine’s bringing the nipper over this weekend, mate,” Chas answered, “or I’d be right there in the thick of the shit with you.”
“I know, Chas,” Constantine admitted with a genuine smile, “and I’ll try not to hold it against you, truly I will.”
John sighed in his head, thankful actually that Chas wasn’t able to join their little war party. He knew it was important for his mate to feel needed, that Constantine wanted him by his side like his Gal Friday, but the truth of the matter was that John didn’t expect his allies to make it through this mission with their skins intact, much like every mission he hated to admit. That was why he’d recruited Shocka, a miserable little git whose death wouldn’t even cause a blip on Constantine’s emotional radar. He needed an ally, that was certain, but there was a far distance between ‘associate’ and ‘friend’. He had plenty of the former, and way too few of the latter these days.
“Mercury, luv,” John addressed the young woman, “we’ve got one last stop to make ‘fore we head off country.”
He paused dramatically, lighting his trademark cigarette to accentuate his point.
“We’re going to have a right nice chat with your mum…”
A rapid taxi ride later, John and Mercury were ascending the narrow staircase of a Chelsea flat building working their way skyward to the third floor. “I know your psychic power is advanced,” he explained to her, “probably even more so than before, assuming you’ve been embracing the gift and honing your use. But it seems this fucker’s not just killed these women, he’s marked sigils in their souls that keep them from heading either to the basement or the attic of the afterlife. That’s why you couldn’t find your mum.”
“But this man…” Mercury started.
“Weeble’s his name,” John interjected.
“So this Weeble,” she continued, “how’s he going to find her if she’s not in Heaven or Hell?”
“Aw, you know as well as I, doll,” Constantine answered as he rapped on the door to flat 312, “a magician never reveals his tricks.”
The overweight middle-aged man, Weeble, had a word half formed when he pulled open the door, but the noise choked and died in his throat. “John Constantine,” he spat, “me day is now officially fucking ruined, isn’t it?”
“Is that any way to greet an old mate?” Constantine answered as he pushed his way inside the flat, tugging Mercury along behind him by her shirt sleeve.
“It is,” Weeble clarified after shutting his door. “When the last time said mate stopped by I wound up possessed by the spirit of Aleister Crowley. Now what the fuck do you want?”
“This little girl’s mum got herself killed by some mad fucker a few nights ago,” Constantine replied as he walked over to the table set up in Weeble’s living room. When he reached it, he pulled the chair out and beckoned for his mate to have a sit-down. “We looked for her spirit; it’s not in Heaven or Hell. I need you to do that voodoo you do so well, Weebs.”
Weeble sighed, but acquiesced without protest by pushing Constantine away from the table and taking his seat in front of it. “I need a fetish,” he stated.
“You got something of your mum’s?” John asked Mercury. The young woman fiddled in the pockets of her jeans until she pulled out a coin.
“You’re giving me a bloody quid?” Weeble asked as she dropped it in his hand.
“The first my mum gave me when I left her in Scotland,” she replied. “It connected us, even when I was a hundred miles south.”
Weeble sighed, muttered something about ‘fucking amateurs’, and closed his eyes. John moved next to Mercury and began to whisper. “Weeble can make contact with any disembodied spirit, regardless of what’s been done to them or where they’ve been placed, through the fetish. I’ve never seen anyone able to hide from him, let’s hope this mad bastard’s not as clever as he thinks he is.”
Weeble began to sway in his seat, his girth moving from side-to-side while a low moan floated from his mouth. Slowly, the moans changed tones, the voice lessening in bass, moving from masculine to feminine. Green mist, the solid ectoplasmic discharge of the spirit world, filtered into the air like liquid in anti-gravity, hovering through the air above the table. “Mercury?” the voice, decidedly female, asked mournfully.
“Mum?” Mercury answered. Constantine gave her points for not tearing up.
“It’s so dark here,” Marj, speaking through Weeble, continued, “I can’t see you, baby. I’m so sorry, I’ve gone and died on you, haven’t I?” The luminous ectoplasm began to coalesce, a woman’s face visible in the fluid.
“I’ve got someone here to help us,” Mercury responded, “someone that needs to know who killed you.”
“I don’t want to remember,” Marj answered. John noticed Weeble’s face twisting into a wince.
“Too late for that, Marj ol’ girl,” Constantine finally spoke up, “you weren’t the last bird on the arsehole’s list. I need to know who it is ‘fore anyone else gets clipped.”
“Oh God,” Marj’s spirit whined, “not John Constantine…”
“Look, I’m sorry I never called, luv,” John apologized, “but this is–”
“You killed me,” the spirit interrupted, angrier and more hostile than before.
“What?” Mercury asked, confused.
The ghost solidified itself a hand, complete with a finger pointed accusatorily at John. “You killed me, John Constantine!”
Constantine scowled…how the fucking hell had things possibly gotten worse than they’d already been?
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To Be Continued...
And now, more continuity notes for the obsessive compulsive among you:
- Helen appeared in the final Garth Ennis arc, “Rake at the Gates of Hell”, where she showed back up in John’s life as a drug-addicted prostitute. John saved her life (though she lost an eye to infection) and she left London on a bus.
- Watford is a bent cop that first appeared in Warren Ellis’ “Haunted” story-arc. His real name has never been said, nor has it been said the reason behind his nick-name ‘Watford’ other than it being tied in to the massive favor he owes to Constantine.
- Weeble was a supporting character during Paul Jenkins’ run on the title, particularly the stories “Critical Mass” and “In the Line of Fire”. He last appeared in “How to Play with Fire”, where he was briefly possessed by the spirit of Aleister Crowley and the demon Buer.
Chris Munn - 11/13
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