Chapter 12

One last love song

"The charge of the freak brigade," John muttered, glancing at the group out of the corner of his eyes.

Not a very impressive number of.creatures had assembled at C'halhn's call. Other than thirty rather sullen vampires led by Ytoller, there were about ten Shadow Thieves - supposedly the best of them, heavily shielded from magic, and ten noisy paladins, led by Bayer. Which made, plus the party and C'halhn, fifty-six of them. Bodhi and her vampires probably outnumbered them by at least two to one.

They had gathered in an agreed chamber in the sewers, rather far away from Ytoller's lair. From the slippery platform painted in ghastly shades of dull olive by slime, they stood about half a metre away from the sluggish, fetid water. John half-expected the water to be positively vibrating with the exhilaration that just about everyone was experiencing before going into a battle wherein it was highly possible that they would all die painfully. He shook his head, and flicked his cigarette into the water - watching the embers continue to glow like a dying sun. Dying embers - it was yet another graphic image that reminded him of what was obviously going to happen.

The panther purred and rubbed against his trousers, nearly forcing him over into the water.

"What was that for?" John glared at it. It ignored his question and continued to purr. Like a broken motorcycle engine, John thought critically. It snorted at him, and he frowned slightly - one day he would have to figure out how it sometimes seemed to be able to read what he was thinking.

"Quiet, sparrow," Y'vair smirked. "If you fall again, this time, there isn't a nice flat floor. You'd probably break your head on the stone."

"His skin's thick enough to absorb the impact," Yoshimo observed dryly.

"I don't know why I bother playing silly buggers with you lot," John glared at the panther again. It was making the noise that was, for it, normally associated with an evil snigger. He aimed a kick at it, which it easily dodged with feline grace, avoiding the damp spots on the platform even as it pretended to try and bite John on the ankle, then leaping backwards, tail slashing through the air in excitement.

"Not you too," John groaned. "I think all of you must have done crack behind my back. There's no way you should be this happy."

"Crack?" Entreri inquired. He was staring at the vampires - they were the group's indication of when the sun would set. The sewers apparently connected to the cemetery, something that John found immensely funny. Sanitation for the dead. The few corpses he had met before certainly needed it.

Apparently there were strong seals on all entrances to Bodhi's crypt when the sun shone in the sky, which disappeared when the sun set, allowing the vampires to go and hunt. John thought this rather stupid - what if the vampires needed to go out in the day? And why couldn't they just blow up the place? But at the shocked look on Ytoller's - and his minions' - faces, the rest of the group decided to drop that idea.

It was worth those expressions just to suggest the idea, actually.

"A drug," John explained, smirking. "I still think we should blow up the area. End of problem, no need to fight."

"Sparrow, we've explained this to you several times," Y'vair complained, "The cemetery is public property. We can't just blow it up." She paused. "Without getting caught."

"As opposed to 'we can't just charge in with two to one odds, we'd all die' I suppose?"

"We won't all die," Arundel smiled happily. "We'd live long yet for the Lady Bard to sing songs of our valor."

"The weight of your armor has crushed out your sad little mind," John retorted. "Well yeah, I take that back. Not all of us will die because some of us are already dead." He jerked his head in the direction of the vampires, all of which were pointedly ignoring him.

"Sparrow, your sense of humor justifies some drastic sort of surgery," Y'vair put her hand on the hilt of her sword in mock warning.

"Forget it, luv, you'd cut off your own fingers with that knife of yours," John grinned, "I've seen your attempts at healing."

"Will they stop eventually?" John heard Bayer asking Arundel in bemusement.

"If they did, I'd be worried."

"How long more till darkness spreads her blanket."

"You're plagiarizing, friend."

"I'm quoting. There's a difference, in case your elven mind can't grasp the subtleties of Common," Bayer winked at his knights. Nine sets of white teeth flashed back an innocent grin under the light of the lanterns hung on the golem's saddle. John remembered a riddle about teeth idly, while watching how the shadows and the water's reflections cast from the candles writhed and contorted on the dank walls as the golem, perhaps reflecting his master's excitement, shifted its weight on metal hooves, tossed its head and shook itself from time to time, an eerie caricature of a real horse.

"Well, I can't understand Pig either." Arundel said innocently. "Stands to reason that Common is so difficult for us elves to grasp."

"Why are they complaining about us?" John raised an eyebrow.

"The sun will set soon," Ytoller said suddenly. "We should move now." Without waiting for any response, the vampires started away swiftly. Muttering curses, John jogged along with the party, behind the clanking knights and the Shadow Thieves that moved as silently as the vampires.

"Remember, cut off their heads, or stake them in the heart," Ytoller said grimly. "The charm amulets all of you have will ward against our mind holds until the next day dawns. Even with the link necklace that it hangs on - try not to get any vampire close enough to rip it off - or you'd be subject to influences again. And in case you try anything against us - well, the charm amulets do not work with us."

"We can turn undead, but." Bayer began.

"Yeah. That would affect us as well," Ytoller admitted.

"How close must you be to be turned?" Arundel asked, "Sorry Bayer, but none of you look um, powerful enough to cause vampires to explode."

Bayer chuckled. "And this is why you should get a god, Arundel! Once a day Helm gifts us with the ability to cause one particular undead to be destroyed. We will use that ability in this fight - but sparingly."

"So long as you're not in our line of sight of four to six metres, you should be fine," Bayer added with a boyish grin. "Stay behind us, we'd signal when we're about to do it. I suppose we might try to warn you lot. It's lucky you have uniforms," he nodded at the scarlet tunics embroidered with Ytoller's crest of a snarling lynx that the vampires wore. "All vamps look the same to me."

"You only have limited numbers of times that you can turn undead, right?" Arundel pressed.

"Yeah," Bayer nodded. "Or else the symbol we have for this purpose," he pointed at his heavy silver amulet whose main design as far as John could tell was a stylized eye, "would crumble into dust. It can only take so much of a God's power in a period."

"Why don't you bring many amulets?" Arundel grinned.

"The amulet's an indication, actually - power's channeled through ourselves. If we attempted to use too much turn undead in a day - well, we would die." Bayer smiled. "Once the amulet turns dark, it's a signal for us to stop."

"How many turn undead tries do you people have in all?" one of the Shadow Thieves finally spoke up. That group had been keeping to themselves through most of the conversations, though John knew from their postures that the buggers were eavesdropping on everything. Rather like leeches.

"Some of us can do it more than others. but I would think, counting the once a day ability. about fifty or so times. And some of us have spells like False Dawn and Sunray, but I'm afraid they'd affect Ytoller and his vampires as well, so we'd only be able to use those as a last resort." There was a certain cast to Bayer's expression when he mentioned the last part of his sentence, but it seemed to go unnoticed by Ytoller.

Well, John thought, the fewer vampires the better.

"That should cut down the odds a little," Arundel smiled optimistically.

John fingered the stake in his pocket, and not for the first time wished that whatever were causing him to go along with this instead of buggering off and coming back later would go away. There was no way he had enough strength - or the equipment - to cut off a vampire's head - not to mention all the accidental collateral damage he would probably do if he attempted to swing a sword for fighting instead of for casting spells. As to being able to get close enough to stake something that moved like a snake. he was probably worse than useless in this sort of fight.

He tried to slow down his footsteps. Maybe the rest of the group would forget about him. and with synchronicity, he'd never be lost. He'd just meet up with them later, with a smile and a wink.

John was rather unsurprised when he realized that he couldn't, in fact, slow down. His feet had rebelled...or someone had taken control. Again.

Bloody hell.

Ytoller looked surprised when they rounded a bend and found themselves in a rather airy, white stone tunnel with a high ceiling. At the end of the tunnel was a large door not unlike the one at Ytoller's hideout, except that various geometric designs had been carved into it, patterns so intricate that any attempt to follow them resulted in a headache. There were no guards in front of the door, and it showed no visible sign of being 'sealed', or any traps that they could see. However, the Shadow Thieves immediately got to work, carefully scrutinizing the area. Entreri let them do it with an ironic smile - he and the Thieves were studiously avoiding having to speak to one another.

"I don't bloody think there're any traps," John muttered. "How would they get out then? Fly?" He paused. "Can they do that?"

"Not unless the vampire was a mage when still in the world of the living," Ytoller commented. "Which is unlikely. Mages should end up as liches - but I am not totally certain of this. I have yet to see a mage vampire before, myself."

"Or the really old vampires," Arundel added, watching as the Thieves examined the area methodically. "Eh, the thieves are good, aren't they?"

Entreri turned down both sides of his mouth in withering disgust, but did not say anything.

"The tunnel's clear," the leader of the Thieves, whose name John couldn't remember and couldn't be bothered to, spoke. "Come on."

"The sun has yet to set," Ytoller said calmly. "And is this going to be organized, or are we all going to charge in and get into each other's way?"

"We offer to go first," Bayer stated, with murmurs of assent from his knights. "There's no way they can bite us anyway." He grinned as he pointed at his steel neck guard and shoulder plates. "And we can turn undead, so."

"We thieves prefer to backstab," the leader said, "So we might not be in a fixed position."

"Backstab a vampire?" Ytoller smirked. "I'd like to see that happen."

The leader ignored him. "But we will attempt to stay in the centre of the group."

"We might have to spread out later," Ytoller continued, "There's no way this many of us can fit into most of the corridors other than the main avenue after this door without serious overcrowding. I suggest we spread out after that. All corridors with silver-traced designs on the ground eventually lead to the main hall, where Bodhi should be, with the most numbers of vampires."

"So we should gather there for our last stand?" Bayer's face showed that his imagination was afire with the romantic concept.

"Hardly," Ytoller snorted. "The corridors all eventually narrow out such that only one person can pass at once, before they open to the main hall that way. You'd have to go in one at a time - very easy to be blocked, or killed."

"So what do we do? Camp out in the main corridor?"

"They'd just wait until these run out," C'halhn pointed to his charm- warded amulet.

"I suggest that when we split up, we split up into mixed groups," Entreri said dryly. "At least one paladin in each. When we reach the ends of those corridors - turn undead and drive out a space long enough for us to get out."

"Which brings us to another problem. How do we get there in the same time? That would be the best way to." the leader was interrupted by an impatient Ytoller.

"Us vampires can. sense each other. We will leave it at that. We'd attempt to coordinate the efforts."

"How many corridors are there? We'd better decide on how to split the group quickly." Arundel glanced nervously at the door. "How long more?"

"Half an hour or so. I hadn't expected us to get here this fast." Ytoller shot John a suspicious glance. John, out of a sense of pure mischief, winked at him, and the vampire turned his head away with a sniff. "As to number of corridors, ten, but two of them are hidden. Groups of seven?" Ytoller glanced at them.

John found himself in a group that consisted of Arundel and his golem, a sulking vampire, Entreri, one paladin called Ajantis that they had encountered before in the Windspear Hills, Y'vair and Yoshimo. The vampires had appeared extremely reluctant to be in any group with him in it, and the same attitude existed regarding Entreri and the Shadow Thieves - they were carefully staying out of each other's personal space, something that seemed to consist of a radius of several metres.

"Be careful of traps in some of the corridors," Ytoller said, "Bodhi has replaced my old traps on the corridors, so even I cannot tell you where they are now."

"Which is why we are here," the Shadow Thief leader smiled with the arrogance common to members of his guild.

Entreri rolled his eyes. John believed that the assassin did not dislike the Thieves purely out of inter-guild rivalry - he was much too.elemental, at times, for that. But his antagonism could stem from a thousand reasons, knowing people, a thousand reasons in which John would probably affect as much interest as he would in getting a beheading.

He wondered what would happen if Entreri were to use the vortex blade on vampires. then remembered what would happen if there was a large explosion underground. Instant burial, how exciting. He was about to warn the thief when Ytoller spoke. "The sun has set."

As they waited tensely, the door began to open ponderously, the grinding of stone sounding quite like an ominous growl. Abruptly, a thousand moths suddenly seemed to melt out of the white stone, white moths that flew towards them in a loud thrumming of wings.

"What the hell is this?" John yelled at Ytoller.

"I have no idea! It wasn't here before"

"Avoid the powder on their wings, it could blind you!" Arundel drew his sword, a highly ineffectual move.

Y'vair calmly stepped forward, muttering a few unintelligible words and placing her hands with palms facing outwards and upwards as the moths bore down on them. A large fan of fire roared out from them, engulfing some of the moths. Systematically she moved the fan up and down until all the moths were charred crisps on the ground, after which the fire seemed to peter out.

That seemed to be the cue for Bodhi's vampires to charge. They didn't wield weapons, but moved incredibly quickly.

"For Helm and the Order!" Bayer shouted, and charged. His paladins followed, all drawing their swords in a shrill hiss of metal like the song of a hundred snakes.

"Berks," John shook his head.

Half of Ytoller's vampires detached from their ranks and swiftly joined the fray, while the other half, as well as Arundel, aimed their crossbows carefully, picking off some of Bodhi's vampires with practiced accuracy. John counted about thirty vampires that were hers - i.e. not wearing scarlet tunics - before giving up. Although the group had apparently lost the advantage of surprise, they were holding up surprisingly well. The close quarters of the tunnel were working for them, not allowing Bodhi's vampires to flank them.

The golem was pure destruction. It shrieked, a metallic, eerie sound that echoed harshly in the tunnel, and used heavy front hooves to batter down a vampire, then the hooves seemed to blur and shift into solid blades that sheared through the vampire's neck with terrible ease. As its body shriveled into a desiccated corpse, the golem moved on, kicking both hind legs at another vampire, crushing its skull. As the creature staggered and fell, a waiting paladin beheaded it. One vampire leaped onto its back, snarling, and it bucked, dislodging the thing, then kicked it in a rather personal and delicate area.

John grimaced in sympathy. With that thing around, perhaps they could win after all.or maybe it'd just be the last one standing.

One vampire broke free from the melee and snarled, charging towards Arundel. The elf carefully aimed, unruffled, and shot. The bolt missed the thing's heart, slamming into its shoulder with a meaty sound, but not enough to down it. Growling in rage, it reached Arundel before the elf could discard his crossbow and draw his sword, but was attacked from the side by C'halhn, wielding a fine longsword, a shield with the insignia of a stag strapped to his left arm. It dodged his slashes, growling, by which time Arundel had drawn his broadsword and split the vampire's skull. Looking thoughtfully at the still twitching body, the elf proceeded to decapitate it as well.

None of the paladins or thieves were actually quick enough to land critical wounds on the vampires, and they changed tactics quickly, turning defensive. Mostly the favored strategy was to distract the vampires enough for Ytoller's minions to stake them, and then to cut off the heads. Still, John counted two downed Thieves with torn throats, and one paladin dead with a broken neck.

Entreri was the exception - with a werewolf's speed, he was actually able to move as quickly as the vampires. As John watched, he ducked a punch from a vampire, his sword a fleeting arc of silver as it slashed open the vampire's belly. As the creature staggered forward, long nails curling into claws that shot towards the assassin, he lashed out with his dagger with controlled precision, severing one of the vampire's hands neatly. As the vampire howled its pain, Entreri used his werewolf strength and cut off its head, watching the creature turn into an inanimate corpse with a feral, vicious smile.

This was obviously not a good thing to do in battle, because another vampire leaped at him, long fingers curling round his neck, strangling. Entreri choked, gasping for air - and blurred into the Change, hair actually sprouting on his face and hands in the few seconds that it took to do so - and a very surprised vampire found itself holding a wolf. Its shock was such that it dropped the wolf and took a step back, staring, in time to receive a quivering arrow-shaft in the heart courtesy of a grinning Yoshimo.

Entreri Changed back into human, and raised his sword in a quick salute to the thief, then dodged a slash. John watched as he faced off three vampires, and considered smoking a cigarette.

Unfortunately for him, his hands were stuck in his trenchcoat fishing for matches and his pouch, when a vampire that had somehow managed to leave the fight lunged at him. The panther darted to the side, and it ignored the cat, preparing to pounce.

It was at these sorts of moments when the brain froze and sweat turned cold, and the stomach overturns with a wash of acid. John gasped, stepping back, somehow managing to free the hand that held Firetooth without ripping his coat, and drew back to throw..knowing that the vampire could just as easily dodge.realizing synchronicity, for some reason, wasn't working. and saw the vampire yell as the cat bit and wrenched at the back of one knee, breaking it. As it fell to its knees, John cursed, knowing he had no way of removing the creature's head.

Yoshimo came to the rescue with his katana. When it was done, the thief grinned impishly at him. "You should learn how to wield one of these. Light, graceful, and deadly." he paused to sheathe his katana and use his bow on an approaching vampire.

John took a look at the sheathed katana. Long enough to trip him up if he attempted to walk with it, heavy enough for him to wrench off his wrist if he attempted to wield it. Yes. Very deadly. In his hands, probably as useful as a rubber chicken in defending himself. The cat purred, as if it had heard.

"Isn't your magic working?" Yoshimo frowned as one of his arrows hit a vampire in the throat instead of in the heart. "Damn." The next one hit the creature close enough to down it. "And I'm running out of arrows."

John ignored the first question. "Go pick them up, then."

"Hah." Yoshimo hit a vampire in the knee. As it stopped, snarling, John managed to hit it between the eyes with a Firetooth, and a Shadow Thief close to them beheaded the thing as it clawed at the dagger. John wiped his magically returned dagger on one of the vampire corpses' clothes.

The fight was ending - the last three vampires were being quickly dispatched. John counted the casualties - four thieves and two paladins, dead.

"Not a very good sign, since we haven't even stepped in," Y'vair voiced his thoughts. Before them, the thieves and paladins were already making their way to the entrance, with the thieves checking cautiously for traps. Entreri padded up to them, the few scratches and gashes that had landed on him not serious enough to warrant treatment at this moment.

"Come, comrades!" Bayer shouted happily, brandishing his sword in the air. "Let us step forth into their lair! Helm will guide our path, to victory!" The remaining paladins cheered.

"Berks." John muttered.

**

The main avenue inside the door was even wider than the corridor outside. The polished walls of the rectangular tunnel were painted with frescoes of symbols of darkness - wolves, the moon, and so on. John found it rather unimaginative and pat, as though someone had attempted to make the place as forbidding as possible, but the chaotic pictures just made it seem like an enthusiastic waste of energy. It was totally unoriginal, unlike the designs on the ground. Traced into the floor with silver and occasionally colored with beautifully set mosaic tiles were grotesque and perversely detailed depictions of some strange rites that seemed to involve a lot of dying and blood. In the backdrop was a large snarling wolf, its fur a gorgeous pattern of mosaic in many shades of red.

Arundel took one look and shuddered. "The ritual of the Turning, yes?"

Ytoller looked surprised. "You know of it?"

"I've come across copies of the books which described it. all three books of the Vampiri. Disgusting, really.and I can't imagine why anyone would want to.never you mind," Arundel said diplomatically.

Ytoller looked even more curious now. "Truly? But the last I heard, the books were in Suldanesselar, and I do not think that city would let you into it."

Arundel smiled. "Ah.but they were not always in Suldanesselar."

Ytoller seemed to be unwilling to leave it at that, but at this moment, the only other door other than the entrance, another stone portal, swung open and erupted vampires, this time armed with swords, met head on by the paladins, who didn't seem to be tiring at all. Maybe they took drugs.

They lost a few more thieves and two of Ytoller's vampires. John shrugged, wondering how many more they would lose in the corridors when they had to split up after this. Again, he wished that synchronicity would bloody hell work right now, so he could move someplace else more peaceful and undead-free.

The room after the door was another large chamber in the shape of a semi-circle. Again, there were frescoes on the wall, though these seemed to have been painted by a more superior artist. Most of it seemed to be of wolves on the hunt, extremely lifelike. The floor, in sharp contrast, was plain white stone.

"This is pretty," Entreri commented, touching the ruff of one of the painted wolves.

Ytoller chuckled. "And well it should be. I paid a lot of money for that one - and some of the other frescoes in this area. Not the one in the main chamber though - that one was by one of those that I turned. Never turn artists into vampires. Something snaps in them, and their work becomes a little.strange."

"'Strange' is a mild term for the pictures outside," Arundel sheathed his broadsword and checked his crossbow in this respite. "I'm not even going to call it art."

C'halhn laughed. "One day that tongue of yours."

"Are we going to split up now?" Bayer interrupted. "There are four corridors only, and now five groups."

Ytoller nodded. "That corridor over there splits up into another branch later. Two groups should head that way, and the rest just take any one of these branches. Leave the rooms as they are, if you can. After we get rid of Bodhi, we will clean them up. Good luck."

"See you around, friend," Bayer winked at Arundel. "If you're still there."

"Mind your short human life doesn't get snuffed out like a candle." Arundel returned good-naturedly.

**

The corridor seemed to wind on forever. John grew to hate the silver designs that curled into lifelike designs of vampires and their activities, because their continuity signaled to him that Synchronicity was still, stubbornly, not working. Occasionally vampires would jump out at them from behind hidden doors, or attempt to - the panther, or Entreri, always smelled them a distance before the actual opening of the door, so they always had prior warning.

At least they hadn't lost a single group member yet.though all of them with the exception of the golem and the vampire were tiring. John had surprised himself by actually attempting to help instead of watching everyone else do it and smoking.though mostly throwing daggers just slowed down the vampires. In worse case scenarios, the vampires threw them back.

The annoying thing was, monsters here either were exempt from any mental 'tricks' John attempted on them, or that aspect of his magic had finally decided to stop working altogether, or someone was interfering. To his annoyance, John realized that he hadn't even considered the idea of using magic to 'dissuade' his party members from joining in this suicidal attack on Bodhi.

When he got his hands on whoever was behind all of this.

"That mosaic on the wall has four vampires behind it," Entreri said conversationally, breaking the train of graphic torture images that John was entertaining in his head. Stupidly enough, the vampires still waited for them to come closer before that section of the wall slid away and they leaped out, temporarily disoriented. Yoshimo got an arrow into the first one, and it staggered back into another vampire that snarled and shoved the weight away. Ajantis shouted out one of his many battlecries (John had counted at least five different ones so far) and charged, swinging his broadsword. The vampires dodged that easily, but one met the sharp side of Entreri's sword.

Two more to go.

"Aren't you going to help, sparrow?" Y'vair asked John, who was, at this point of time, leaning on the wall and watching.

"Me? You lot seem to be doing quite well," John smirked.

"He'd only get in the way," Entreri said, dodging a swipe and slashing open one vampire's belly with his sword. It jerked back with a wail, and the werewolf reversed his stroke and swept off the head.

John wisely decided not to respond, and it was true anyway. When they disposed of the last vampire, the continued to follow the silver threads.

Eventually, as Ytoller said would happen, the corridor narrowed such that they had to walk in single file. At least no more vampires leapt out of walls, though Entreri found and disarmed the occasional trap. John was vaguely surprised that the golem somehow still managed to pass without scraping against the walls. It was trotting behind him, bringing up the rear in case they got attacked from behind, and John had that unpleasant feeling between his shoulderblades that he got whenever something suspicious was walking behind him. Usually this something suspicious was Mr. E in pre-Eric days, but you'd never know.

They reached a stone door at the end that looked as though it would be able to move with a single push. The vampire in their party announced that the others weren't all in position yet, and they should wait.

The period of waiting before possible death was one experience that John had gone through several times in his life, and an experience that he never really liked to repeat. The comradely 'good luck's eventually fade into a silence in which one fancies that one can hear one's own heart beating, beating out its life force and marking the time left in your life which could be extinguished any moment. One becomes incredibly, horribly aware of everything - the soft slithering sound of the false mane against the golem's metal neck, the rhythmic breathing of the rest of the group with the exception of the vampire, the rasp of clothing as someone moves, the occasional sound from the panther. In this state something weird happens to the digestive system and one gets an uncomfortable feeling in the stomach and the muscles all tense, winding up like a coiled spring, ready to burst. It's worse in confined areas, like where they were in now, where if John reached up with one hand he could touch the bloody ceiling.

Bugger this.

After an eternity while John began to grow more and more impatient, the vampire said, "Everyone's in position."

"They probably already know we're here," Entreri muttered, but he kicked open the door as Ajantis strode forward, a silver holy symbol held in one outstretched hand that suddenly glowed in an amber light that was bright enough to be painful to look at. The vampire in their party let out a whimper.

John poked it in the back and smirked into its face. "Batteries in them lights will run out sooner or later."

Ajantis' symbol cleared out a fan of space from the vampires that had been waiting to pounce. John estimated about sixty or so in the chamber, and winced. There probably wasn't space enough to slack off.

It was a large round chamber with a circular pool in the centre about two metres in diameter, filled with what looked like blood. There were apparently eight openings to the room, and four more of them burst open, spilling out paladins and Thieves.

"Bodhi!" Ytoller roared from somewhere inside a mass of vampires.

"Ytoller! You will die this day!" This came from a female vampire that stood next to the blood pool, clad interestingly in tastefully placed patches of black leather. It looked as though the vampire had been wearing a catsuit that had been savaged by a sewing machine with some scissors, in John's opinion.

The vampire Bodhi stared at him with vicious, insane eyes, and he flipped the finger at her and winked.

"John Constantine!" She snarled. "Catch the Out-worlder, my children! Bring him to me!"

"You never mentioned your popularity in these sorts of circles, sparrow." Y'vair told John brightly.

"Yeah well, some women just can't seem to keep their hands off me, luv," John leered at her. Y'vair snorted, and fended off a charging vampire, somehow managing to slam it into the wall and put a stake through its heart, even though the stiffness of the swing signified that she was tired. He wondered if it was possible to slip out from behind and make a run for it while everyone else was having fun, but dismissed the idea - if he ran into any vampires there, he would be on his own.

A fight with more than ten people in an enclosed area tended to be somewhat messy. John realized that a good thing to do was to stay in a situation where you're somewhat out of the action and your back is to the wall, i.e. nothing hostile can sneak up behind you. Something he had also realized early in life was that if he kept quiet (this is the difficult part) in an area and didn't do anything untoward people wouldn't recognize him. However, now that most of Bodhi's minions seemed hell-bent on getting to him, this option of staying in one place wasn't particularly feasible, so he did the next best thing - stay next to Yoshimo, whose arrows kept enough vampires away for it to be safer than say, staying near Ajantis, or staying by himself.

The melee was noisy and confusing, but somehow unreal, like watching some sort of movie that hadn't been filmed very well, what with the dim lights and the uncoordinated action. Somewhere in there the golem was shrieking a challenge in that unnerving, almost-alive way of it. The paladins, for some reason, were singing. This John found extremely funny, though he couldn't locate the reason.

.fire, twisting into wraiths and long, sharp-talon fingers.

"What the hell?" John blinked. How did that image get into.?

.fire, blossoms of heat in blood-color or sunset-hue, burning clouds.

".John Constantine?" John realized Yoshimo was staring at him. "Are you okay? You."

.fire, in the Eye of the Lord, hammer-heat in the forge of the core of the Realm.

The images seemed to race over his eyes, blanking out everything around him for the moments that they were there. John shook his head forcefully and tried to tell Yoshimo that he was fine, but he realized the thief wasn't paying attention to him anymore, but staring at Bodhi. So he looked.

Bodhi caught Y'vair's blade, laughing, and jerked it out of her grip, tossing it into the blood pool. Y'vair swore, and traced out a symbol in the air that glowed yellow as it hung there, resembling some sort of Celtic knotwork, but whatever it was didn't seem to work on Bodhi. The vampire lunched, punching Y'vair in the stomach, then as the bard doubled over, Bodhi caught both sides of her head, rubbing one finger against the gleaming horn for a moment. The vampire caught and held John's horrified eyes, then she smiled, and twisted.

Y'vair's neck snapped with an audible crack.

The sound seemed to roar its echo inside John's ears, numbing out all sensations, even grief, and he was dimly aware of a hot taste in his mouth and a clenching, icy feeling around his heart before a headache blossomed, behind his temples, behind his eyes. His muscles all seemed to tense, and the tips of his fingers tingled as though on the verge of getting frostbitten. He tried to cry out, but couldn't move his mouth, and in a final act of utter frustration pushed hard at all the strange sensations erupting in his body. They seemed to writhe and twist into some final image that burst out and left him blank, calm.

.fire, bloody hellfire.

The white space before his eyes switched abruptly to a cool black, and he sank into it gratefully, and in a crazy whirl, half-forgotten words came to mind.

1 One last love song

To bring me back

And then walk on

Keep walking on.

--

Little Notes and References:

The freak brigade: I've read Trenchcoat Brigade/the first Books of Magic. Haha! I admit to taking bits from them.

Y'vair: Yes, I know; yet another woman who got involved with JC died. This sort of thing happens. but actually, an RL explanation of 'why' is because I asked a friend of mine whether or not I should kill off his girlfriend in the story, and she said yes, so I did. We are both evil. Join the club.

Controlling John: This is because I'm pretty sure under normal circumstances, John would slack off from this sort of trouble, or find some means to deal with it that do not involve as much a chance of him getting hurt. Hence, this plot device. John may or may not eventually stop being useless in party terms. Heh.

One last love song: This probably doesn't have any significance other than the fact that I just reread the story of the same title by Warren Ellis (who I always confuse with Garth Ennis), where John walks in a park while the ghosts of all his former girlfriends come out and haunt him, and he talks about them (hey, maybe this has some significance.). Which reminds me: time to rant: 17 months more before that Brian "Bozo" Azzarello leaves Hellblazer. an eternity.