Chapter Three

"Well I'll be damned." John Constantine said as he cupped his hand around the cigarette dangling from his lips and lit the end. Chas would have a bloody fit if he knew he was smoking in the library. If he was smoking in the house period.

He stared at the opposite wall lined with books while leaning against the one behind him. The library was the one place he felt a measure of peace. He'd saved the world so wouldn't it be fair that he didn't have to worry about all the bloody ghouls, ghosts and Demons that always threatened to put the world back into the dark ages? No, he still found himself dabbling in the dark arts. Protecting him, protecting her, protecting them and nearly letting so and so get killed.

He wasn't a 'Master' of the dark arts, he thought wryly. Still gotta change those calling cards, he thought to himself. A good couple years late in the making.

"So I'm IT, huh?" He said to no one in particular. He had a way with things that go bump in the night, huh? He made a humming sound around the cigarette and then inhaled, the tip flaring bright orange. He tilted his head back and let out a stream of smoke. Yes, he was out. There just wasn't anyone else fit for the job, Manny had told him.

He shrugged at the thought. It wasn't as if he had anything better to do. Even if Manny had told him to leave the Demons alone, they'd probably find their way to him.

And he liked dabbling in the dark arts.

Destiny was irony.

The last person he had expected to see at a random summoning/banishing was Zed. Bloody hell, what was the little luv doing there? She was just as bad as he was, he thought wryly. She just couldn't get away from it. Sure, he'd had partners before but they'd been human. No, Zed was human, but she had something the others didn't. She was psychic. She saw things, she knew things that others didn't and in the past, those things had guided him to where he had needed to be.

Amusement filled him, the cigarette hanging between two fingers as he lifted up a few pieces of the papers that she'd had the misfortune to miss. Rough images of none other than him. Sure, he'd seen the terrifyingly familiar drawings of his past tonight, but he knew those were of no consequence. That 'knowing guidance' of hers was back in full force, if that Incubus was anything to go by.

And these sketches deserved to be framed, if he did say so himself. He'd always been a boastful and sometimes twisted bastard. She had to have seen these in her mind to have drawn them, he thought cheerfully. He really liked the one of some lady behind him, though he couldn't see her face. Yes, this one was going to be framed.

Yes, Constantine thought, she was coming back. It was an unfortunate matter, one that destiny had forced her into just like it had him. It was only a matter of when. After all, who was crazy enough to walk this path with him?

He cursed when he heard a door close and started waving frantically at the air with the sketches, trying to disburse the smell of cigarette smoke.

"Dammit, John. What did I tell you about smoking in the library?" Chas said as he strolled in.

"I'm not."

"You've got a cigarette hanging from your lips with ash falling to the floor, John."

"Bullocks." Constantine muttered beneath his breath as he plucked the cigarette out and flicked the ashes in a trash bin and then doused the cigarette.

"One day you're going to set fire to the library and then where are we going to be?"

"In a burned down library?" He offered in return. "You won't believe who I caught in a summoning today."

"Who?"

"A certain artist who has a talent for portraits."

Chas looked up, disbelief in his voice. "Zed? Zed Martin? She was trying to summon a Demon?"

Constantine chortled. "No, she just happened to be in the wrong place at the right time." He tossed the sketches across the table. "And these." He wasn't shy about the drawings. He almost wished he could have snatched up a few more.

"Eh...so she saw you again." With one finger, Chas slid the sketches back across the table.

"And the Demon I sent back to hell, too. Along with a few others, but those are of no consequence."

"She's coming back?" Chas almost sounded hopeful.

Constantine looked back on the three of them together, he and Zed more often than not. They'd been some bloody team, alright. He snickered to himself. Maybe he was so amused at the idea because he knew she was fighting it. Knew she was fighting the thought of coming back—but she couldn't fight destiny or fate. She apparently had a hand to play in protecting the world over and over.

Constantine couldn't help himself. He laughed. "Oh, she's coming back. She may not want to, but she doesn't have a choice."

He was getting on her nerves. Constantine didn't even have to be near her to do that. He just did it. Zed knew how he worked. She was familiar with him. The way he cast his spells, the way his lips moved when he chanted. She was furious with him for waking her up out of a sound sleep—the best she'd had in months—moving silently across the room to the desk and silently started on another sketch.

Here she was again, in the middle of the night and the distinct image taking place on the paper was Constantine. He was staring straight up at her and his mouth was frozen open in what she knew was a chant. She traced his palm again with the sharp coaled pencil, straightening the lines. His hand was stretched out, the palm facing outward towards her on the paper.

She had tried staying in bed and for a moment, she had succeeded. She had lifted a hand and balled it in a fist, patiently waiting before leaving the bed. She knew that if she didn't get the image out of her head and on paper, then she wouldn't be going back to bed.

It wasn't just Constantine that did it. She couldn't place the blame entirely on him. It was anything. A dream, a vision. She had to do it. She NEEDED to.

She darkened the rim of his eyes until they were nearly life like, coloring in the irises black. She grimaced. How many more times was this going to happen?

Dammit—she wanted a normal life. She tilted her head back and looked up at the ceiling. "Why the hell can't you just leave me alone? You have Constantine. Let him do your dirty work." She waited, almost daring them to respond but somehow she knew she wasn't going to get a response. That was Constantine's area; he was good at getting responses. Both good and bad.

Her chest moved as she gave a heavy sigh, her eyes catching the clock and the time. 3:15am. She crossed her arms on the desk and lowered her head. She wouldn't have put it past Constantine to have figured out how her visions worked. Use them against her to bring her back into the world of his meddling arts. After all, who else could do what she did? Who else would have followed him like she had?

"I'm losing it." Zed groaned out.

She lifted her head and stared down at the finished sketch. She was annoyed with Constantine. A lot, and most of it didn't make sense as to why she was. Well, Constantine didn't make sense period.

She ran a hand over her face and went to sweep the paper off the desk but something stopped her. She stared silently at the shadowy image she had colored in behind him. It towered over him, almost like a shadow, almost like a part of him but set apart. She couldn't see its face, but she had sketched the gleam of eyes, the curve of horns—

Her memory danced back to him sending the Incubus back to hell. Yes, he had.

Her stomach dropped; she wasn't scared. Just seeing the roughly drawn image unsettled her. Almost everything she drew had a tendency to do that. But the pit of her stomach felt empty. Now that wasn't something she liked to see.

She opened the drawer on the right and pulled out a small, neatly designed card. 'John Constantine' was printed out across the calling card in gold, along with that BS about him being a Master of the Dark Arts. She flipped the card over and punched the number into her cell phone. She didn't talk herself out of it.

The phone rang twice and at nearly 3:30 in the morning, she would have thought him still awake.

The man didn't sleep.

She frowned and flipped the paper over so that she had a blank canvas and cried out mentally in denial as her hand moved, coloring in a shadowed hand reaching out for the phone on the bedside table—

"Hello?" Constantine said a little too loudly in her ear.

She started when she realized what had happened. She stared down at the half drawn image and could do nothing but think, 'what the hell'? She couldn't even form a single greeting.

"Fix the bloody thing, Chas. Hello?"

So Chas was still there, huh?

"Hello—"

Zed disconnected, staring at the phone in her hand. That didn't make sense. She didn't see things AS they happened. What she had was more like premonitions, they happened after she saw them. Sometimes they could change the events. Her frowned deepened as she redialed.

"Hello?" Constantine's voice echoed in her ear, the annoyance clear. She could just imagine him wondering who was calling him at nearly four in the morning.

"Are you alright?" Zed asked the obvious.

"Who the devil is this?"

She sighed. She turned the paper over so that she was staring at his image again. It unsettled her seeing that shadow behind him. "It's Zed." She answered against her will. "Now, are you alright?" She asked again.

She heard the distinct sound of his chuckle over the phone and then, "Hey, Chas. It's Zed." and then, "Of course I'm alright, luv, why wouldn't I be? Chas wants to know when you're—"

She disconnected. That was all she wanted to know.

Her cell phone rang and she stared at it. No, it couldn't be...

She smacked herself in the forehead. It definitely could be. Constantine had caller ID just like everyone else. She hesitated on answering it. She didn't have to. She could just—

"What do you want?" She was surprised at how even her voice sounded.

"You called me." He sounded amused. "You still have my number after all this time. I'm touched."

"I didn't remember it. I just had one of those calling cards you gave me a long time ago."

"You didn't call me just to see if my number was the same, luv. To what do I owe this pleasure?" As if in after thought, he added, "Or to whom?"

She had the mental image of booted feet being propped up on a table. She heard Chas in the background telling him to get his feet off the table.

She paused, the line silent. If she confided in him, she was just opening the gape further. The more contact she had with him, the harder it was going to be to cut the ties. Those ties were knotting with each word. They were pulling her further and further back into his world.

"Zed. Still there?"

"I'm seeing things." She finally admitted.

He didn't sound convinced. "You've always seen things. Are you drunk? If you wanted a drinking partner, you could have called earlier. I would have been happy to oblige."

"No, I mean...I just saw you." She said. The last time she'd gotten drunk with him, she'd ended up sketching a whole demon on his back in her drunken stupor. He'd ended up with a mustache on his face, too. Childish, but always funny. It was the classic thing to do.

"You saw me?" He repeated slowly.

"Yes, when you answered the phone."

"So you saw me when I answered the phone?" Constantine repeated back evenly.

"Dammit, John, yes. I saw you reaching for the phone. I saw it clearly as if you were right beside me. And this—" She said, shaking the paper in her hand as if he would see it.

"What is 'this'?"

Of course he couldn't see what was in her hand. That made sense.

"I'm sorry, dear, but you're not making any sense. If you don't tell me what's wrong, I'll find you myself—"

"Goodnight, John." Zed said simply and turned the phone off. Her mistake in calling him. She had felt relief the moment he had spoken. He was alright and there was nothing to her fear. She was so out of touch with her ability that after two years of absence, she was making more of the situation than there was.

For once since the week had started, she went to bed and slept.