NOTES: The point at which this takes place has John at the age of 37, and Michelle 17. It's really based off of my RPG, and if you follow the link to my website, you can find pages for both.
May, 1990
London. She had mixed feelings about the hazy city. It was yet another metropolis where the sky became grey -- blood red at dusk, a killer's vista as the day died out -- and it was virtually impossible to sight the stars. She'd once wanted to be a star.
But she wasn't a star now, and she wasn't visiting England's brightest city to go sightseeing. Admonishing herself for such a flight of fancy, she straightened up and followed her target outside the bar -- pub, here -- they'd both been frequenting for most of the afternoon and now a brief period of the evening.
She didn't want to be seen, and so no one looked up as she passed by, a silent shadow following a burly man down the streets. When he stopped outside yet another pub, presumably to chat with a small crowd of men, she took point between buildings across the street.
When he crumpled under the single, noiseless shot she fired, she left immediately, her departure quickened by the way a scruffy blond man within the group appeared to have been looking her way. An impossibility, but she knew that paranoia often kept a person whole.
She doubled back to the first pub, a place she knew was safe ground, and sat in silence. Once she'd ordered a drink she was left alone, once more all but invisible. No one appeared to notice the seventeen year-old girl in their midst.
Her solitary sanctuary remained undisturbed for only thirty minutes at the most, and she was broken from her reverie by a calm voice at her ear.
"Mind if a bloke sits for a spell?"
By the time she looked up, shocked, the blond man from earlier was sitting on the opposite end of her table while the crowd chattered on amiably in the background. No one was supposed to realize she was there. She was confused, and now more than a little frightened.
"You killed a mate of mine, though I'm sure you already know that. I'd ask why, but the pillock was a waste of flesh from the start."
Numb, she stared wordlessly while the blond man, the unreadable blond man, lit a cigarette, studying her from under hooded but nevertheless intense blue eyes. He held her transfixed in his gaze until she felt that if she didn't look away soon, she'd go mad.
He grinned, and suddenly she was blinking rapidly. It scared her.
"Name's Conjob, in case you were wondering."
She was, but hadn't realized it until now.
"Yours?"
"Enigma," she whispered out hesitantly. You never gave your real name to men like this. Young, sure, but she wasn't completely stupid.
He laughed. Laughed! Not a soul looked her way. That didn't seem to be such a good thing as it was earlier.
"That the game, then? Ah, I'll go first. John Constantine. Now what's your real name, luv?"
"Adrienne Cohen," she lied, unwilling to give him that kind of power over her. His grin faded into an unnerving smirk, one that said he knew the truth, but all he did about it was reach for the beer she hadn't touched. She felt as though she were about to be burned at the stake, but she couldn't so much as look away.
"Ren, it is." And suddenly she found herself... not liking him, persay, but something similar to that. It were as if the false nickname were some magical talisman, allowing her fear to melt away. "Now Ren, tell me why you shot my mate, hm?"
"Money."
He nodded slowly, as if that explained everything, which was good, because to her, it did. "Let's take a stroll, Ren, shall we?"
It seemed like he was replacing his lost friend with her, she observed. But she didn't mind, not really. Friends, even fleeting ones, she knew, were hard to find. And he was an invisible star, just like her. She found that reassuring, and thus hadn't protested when he'd taken her to his apartment -- flat, because she was in London now.
He'd gotten her age -- hell, her entire life story -- out and onto the table in no time at all, saying that it was her eyes which gave everything away. He'd stopped her when she'd tried to kiss him. Then he'd tried to kiss her, and she made no attempt to deter his efforts.
That had all been last night. Now, as she sat on the edge of his mattress, she watched him sleep with a frown, a similar expression on her own face. It wasn't intentional; she just didn't smile often. She suspected that neither did John.
His name struck her sense of irony. She'd spent weeks frequenting streetcorners, but had decided that if she were going to sell herself, it might as well be for something more savory and with a larger margin of profit. And yet here she was, in bed with yet another John.
Disgusted with herself, she picked up her scattered clothes and headed to the bath. Turning on the water, she hunted down a reasonably clean towel -- he was single, all right, because he was an utter slob -- before stepping under the shower spray. The water pressure was pathetic, forcing her to stand flush against the wall.
It was hot water, though, and that pleased her. She was cold. Everything had been cold, except for when he'd held her one time. But he wanted sex, not to comfort a girl that wasn't even legal in her home country, and she'd be damned if she bothered him about something so trivial. Besides, it weren't as though she was a child. She didn't need that kind of thing.
With her eyes closed and her head tilted back, she let the water run over her face. If this was what her life was going to consist of -- murder and one nighters -- she wasn't sure she wanted to bother. But then, what else did she have available? Normality wasn't even an option, not with abilities she couldn't even understand, and death had never held much of an appeal. Not hers, anyway.
Looking down to the drain, she sighed as the hot water finally began to run out. She was still cold, and quickly turned the water back off before it got worse. The chill tile she found herself standing on did little to help.
Wrapping the towel around herself, she turned to the mirror and began finger-combing her hair, a hateful task made worse by clammy, trembling hands.
The girl who looked back from the glass was not her. The mousy brown hair was someone else's. Hers was a heavy sable, though the shoulder-length cut was the same. And neither did the dark eyes belong to her, because hers were a piercing light green. She scowled at her inability to recognize herself, though silently guessed that it made her makeshift disguise a successful one.
Dropping the towel to pool at her feet, she grabbed a pair of cheap nylon panties emblazoned with disgustingly bright flowers and trimmed with scratchy lace. She hated wearing undergarments with a passion, but her mother had never worn them. Having no desire to be anything like the dead woman who'd continuously lied to her, she tugged the cheap things over her hips before gladly covering them with a worn pair of jeans. When she glanced up to reach for her shirt, she discovered John watching her impassively from the doorway.
She wanted to spout off something witty, but it was as if he held her in his thrall again. Placing a half-burned cigarette to his lips, the Englishman began unbuttoning his shirt.
Again? she thought, but said nothing, moving to stand before him when John motioned her over. She felt as though she were a child when John helped her into the oversized shirt, buttoning it for her. Once he'd finished dressing her like some life-sized doll, he leaned forward and kissed her forehead in a gesture of affection neither of them could grasp.
They stood in renewed quiet for several long minutes, examining one another with the sudden insight that this was to be a turning point for the both of them.
John surprised her when he quickly turned on a heel and left the room. She remained where she was, unsure of whether or not she should follow, but he made up her mind for her, returning to the bathroom long enough to take her by one thin wrist and pull her into the front room. She stifled her confusion, her hurt, when he shoved a wad of bills into her hand.
She wasn't a goddamned whore--
"This isn't for the shag, so don't get your knickers in a twist," John interrupted before she could even finish her thought. "It's a start," he said, this time much more gently.
"Death only leads to more of the same, Ren. Do you understand that?"
"Yes," she answered, and that much was true. She knew full well where a lifetime of it would take her.
"Your word that you'll stop?" They both realized what a pointless request that was. John was being a hypocrite, but she knew that she reminded him of himself when he was younger, or maybe of the niece he'd thought of earlier but had yet to mention.
"Yes," she lied effortlessly, making them both feel better. And who knew, maybe she would. At least until the money he'd given her ran out, and she'd be sure to stretch it as far out as she could.
Stubbing out the remains of his cigarette, John reached out to touch her, thought better of it, and instead lit up another. She breathed in the second hand smoke with relish, understanding that she'd now forever associate the scent with the man who'd given her money and his shirt in a futile attempt to atone for some past sin she didn't know of.
It didn't particularly bother her.
She directed a mild look his way and took his face in both her hands with a smile he found far too ambiguous. But he didn't stop her, not when she kissed him, nor when he was filled with an overwhelming need to see Kit Ryan, who needed to know about the feverish intensity which he loved her with.
"Thank you, John," she said once she'd pulled away, then paused as though considering. "It's Michelle. My name. Michelle Sattler."
"You're welcome, Ren." He didn't so much as bat an eyelash, and this time when he grinned it wasn't nearly as frightening. "I suspect that we'll see each other again," he said, and in that she heard a reminder of her false promise to stop the death.
"Bad pennies always do." And then she left, John unable to help himself from watching her ghost her way down a street that was a grey several shades too bright, obscuring her figure into yet another invisible star.
When he turned to the telephone, his hands were more steady than they had been in months. While he dialed and then listened to it ring, John reached for his third cigarette of the morning, pausing only long enough in lighting up to savor the sound of the voice that picked up on the other end of the line.
"Kit? It's John. I... We need to talk."