hey, I'm back! Sry about the wait guys-I was grounded (again…) But here's this chapt. Things are starting to get a little more mysterious.
More Desdemona and John mentioned here, but very briefly.
No, I am NOT going to explain who the mentioned 'Gomory' is in this chapt, cause that's part of the mystery (hahahahahahahahahahaha!)
Chapter 7-Books, Coffee, and Death
Acton helped himself to a dark-blue velvet couch that had a cherry wood frame. He set his glass down on the small table next to him. Balthazar sat on a white chair-also with a cherry wood frame-across from Acton. Even though it was Balthazar's dwelling, Acton sat back in the chair with his legs crossed as if he owned the place.
"When Constantine arrives," he said in a business-like manner, "don't mention me. If I feel it necessary, I'll intervene. But, and I believe you'll agree, my position in the police department should remain unspoken."
"What do I tell him?" Balthazar asked as he took out a cigar and lighter. It was rather interesting that John Constantine and Balthazar, enemies on almost every circumstance, both shared a love (need) for nicotine.
Acton answered without skipping a beat, like he'd just been waiting for the question to be asked, "Tell the exorcist about and where to find our dear Gomory." He added as an after thought, "And tell him where to find that…embarrassment."
Balthazar looked furious as he looked up from the orange glow of his cigar. "What?"
Despite Balthazar's tone, Acton didn't react at all, save for taking his drink up again.
"This is our concern!" Balthazar continued in a rage, "Not the exorcist's!
Acton replied without looking up from his drink in a deadly cold tone, "Are you questioning me, Balthazar?"
Balthazar faltered-a rare gesture from the half-demon-and replied in a calmer tone, "I'm only-"
Acton didn't let Balthazar try to recover himself. "You never question me. Is that understood?"
Balthazar gave a nod-almost curtly, but he caught himself.
"Now," Acton went on, "if you are so hateful towards the exorcist, handle it later. Right now, I think it best to let him take care of our problem. There's nothing he can possibly do to harm us. He'll punish Gomory for us, he'll eliminate the behemoth. No more."
Balthazar thought for a minute then asked curiously, "And the girl?"
The corners at Acton's mouth turned upwards ever so slightly. "Oh, yes. Well, Detective Charles Acton, an upstanding member of the Los Angeles Police, is going to approach her sometime in the near future and question her-in more ways than she'll ever know."
"John? John, ya in there?"
Bam! Bam!
These were the sounds that awoke John Constantine at 8 am, having only gotten to sleep five hours ago after grabbing a bus home from Eden and then spending some alone time at the kitchen table with his smokes, drinks, and sour memories. John was only half awake, but he already knew he had a hangover.
"John? John!"
Bambambam!
John rolled over-and promptly fell off of the couch, missing a collision with the cheap coffee table by mere inches.
Well, that's one way for a quick wake up.
John grumbled some curses, mostly directed at Chas for waking him up, and the rest just curses for the hell of it.
He picked himself up and half-walked, half-dragged himself to the door, which Chas was still yelling at and pounding.
He opened the door just as Chas was going for another swing. Chas's eyes widened in surprise, but also at the sudden horrific realization that he was about to hit John Constantine in the face.
But the boy was shocked when John-who looked like a bum that had wandered into the room by mistake, with his dark hair tousled, morning whiskers on his face, his shirt messed up, and a sort of greenish sickly look on his face-grabbed the wrist with a firm-too firm-grip.
"Hey, nice reflexes," Chas complimented.
John's eyes, though a little glazed over, glared down at the kid. "What do you want, Chas?" he half-growled, half-mumbled.
"What do I want!" Chas said indignantly, "I wanted to know if you were okay! Wanted to know how things went at the club last night, if you got any leads, that kinda thing." He added with a wince, "And you can let go of my wrist any time, John. Anytime at all."
John did, then turned and went back into his dim apartment-the lights from the hall were hurting his eyes. Chas invited himself in, trailing John. The kid's eyes fell on the ash tray, which was piled with used cigs, and the empty and half-empty beer bottles on the table.
"Uh…something happen last night, John?" Chas asked carefully. No, it wasn't unusual for John to smoke (smoked what, 3 packs a day?) or to drink (his liver was in constant battle with his lungs to see who would finally kill him) but he didn't typically binge on both of them at the same time.
John paused for a minute, but then just shrugged and mumbled something Chas didn't overhear. John headed in the direction of the bathroom. Chas figured it was either to throw-up or piss. Either way, he felt it best to just stay in the kitchen and make some coffee.
Still, before John was out of earshot, Chas called scornfully, "Oh yeah, my leg's fine by the way, thanks for asking!"
John shouted back what Chas was sure was a curse, but he didn't quite catch it.
Chas brewed the coffee in a very short amount of time. The number one reason it took so little time, when compared to when Chas made coffee at his own house, was that John was a 'coffee conservative' as Chas had coined the term. John didn't play around with the different flavors and brands or even cream and sugar (this was all blasphemy in the Coffee Gospel of Chas). Instead, John Constantine stuck to regular black. Chas could not fathom how a person could stick to black coffee all of his life. It was like eating lettuce all the time, but never in a salad, never with dressing, never different kinds of lettuce; just green leaves of roughly the same bland flavor.
Chas surveyed the room, appreciating the wooden shuttered walls. He'd always liked those. However, he didn't like them during the day, when only whispers of sunlight entered the room. Unlike John, Chas enjoyed sunlight.
Chas's gaze soon fell on the large bookshelf in the back corner. Temptation bloomed within him like a morning lily at dawn. John always had the best research books, the kinds Chas could never find anywhere else, not even on eBay. And John never shared.
Chas chewed on his tongue, a habit he'd had since a kid whenever nervous or unsure.
Gathering his courage, Chas quietly stepped across the room on tiptoe. He was careful to adjust his weight with each step to avoid making any squeaks on the hardwood floors. The journey seemed to take hours, each step taking an eternity and still not getting him more than inches to the bookshelf that was light-years away.
Finally, after a millennium of sneaking from across the other side of the room, Chas had reached the bookshelf.
"Yesss!" Chas praised in a hushed cheer.
His finger ran excitedly down the row of spines, most of them thicker than the average dictionary. Some of the books Chas recognized, as he'd added them to his own personal collection: 'Studies in the Occult'(a classic), 'Pentacles, Pentagrams, and Premonitions: The Connection Between Magic and Prophesy', 'Paracelsus, Kelley, Cagliostro and More: Alchemists of History', 'Satan's Court'. But the most intriguing books were the ones without any titles at all. These were typically books that seemed centuries old, with leather binding and gold or silver designs printed on the spines in the place of titles.
Chas took a book that wasn't too large, but about the size of the 5th Harry Potter book. It was black with silver designs, no title. Chas slipped it out of the shelf with ease, eager to start reading. But just as he was lifting up the cover, he heard the bathroom door open with a squeak that served well as a warning alarm.
In panic desperation, Chas clutched the book tightly and leapt across the room, touching the floor only twice and, as luck would have it, little sound. He sat down at the kitchen table and slid the book onto his lap, which was hidden under the counter of the table, a move he considered very smooth.
John entered the room, now wearing a new shirt, a towel draped over his shoulders. His hair was still wet. He'd shaved too.
Chas raised an eyebrow. "You took a shower?"
John shrugged. "Needed one."
He looked up at Chas and noticed that the kid's face was red and he was panting…like he'd just ran.
"Chas…"
"What?"
The kid's reaction was too easy. Chas tried to act calm, but his wide eyes and sudden rigidness were dead giveaways.
"Chas, did you do something?" John asked suspiciously.
"Did something? I didn't do anything!" Chas said a little too quickly, before adding with a nod to the coffeemaker, "I made coffee though."
"Uh huh."
John walked over to the cabinets and grabbed a mug from a shelf. While John's back was turned, Chas let out a sigh of relief. John had bought it.
Now standing with his back to Chas, John looked over at his bookshelf, a target he knew Chas would go after if left alone long enough. The kid just did not understand the concept of private property. He just didn't get that he, John, wasn't about to lend out some of the rarest texts in demonology to some kid who couldn't even take care of his own books. John's suspicious guess was confirmed when he saw that the fourth row up, having lost a book, was now slanted dramatically to the right.
Smirking to himself at his own deductive skills, John poured himself a cup of coffee. He looked over his shoulder at Chas.
"Hey, kid, want a cup?" he offered with fake sincerity.
Chas however, believed John's offer as genuine as John extended the mug to him. Despite his extreme dislike of the black coffee, Chas thought it best to except.
He twisted around in his chair to take it. "Yeah sure-"
While Chas was distracted and twisted to the left, John went around the right and snatched the book off of Chas's lap.
"Hey!" Chas cried out, caught completely off guard, realizing all too late that he'd been tricked.
John held the book out of reach and took back his coffee.
"I told you not to touch my books, kid," he reprimanded before he took a gulp of coffee.
Chas glared at him for a minute, then gave up and turned back around in his chair.
"Come on, John. They don't exactly carry those things in the library, you know," he grumbled.
John shrugged. "Too bad, kid."
Chas pouted for a few more seconds before changing the subject.
"And you still haven't asked about my leg."
"I figure, you could walk up the steps and down the hall to get here, you must be in okay shape," John said without a single tone of care.
Chas rolled his eyes. John walked over to the other side of the table and sat down, careful to keep one hand on the book and the other wrapped around his coffee mug.
With a sigh of defeat, Chas said, "Yeah, well… I didn't need stitches or anything. My biggest problem was explaining to the doc how exactly I turned my legs into sushi."
John made a sound like 'hmm…' but it was more of a response to Chas than a response to what Chas was saying. He had grabbed up the little black remote for the small kitchen TV.
Chas went on, this time a little proud, "I told 'em I fell asleep in the cab and some psycho tried to break in. But I woke up when the glass hit my leg and, despite the great amount of pain, was able to jump out of the car, chase after the would-be car thief, corner and subdue him-even though he had a big-ass Bowie knife-and called the cops on the guy's own cell phone."
"Are you leaving out the part where you said you also rescued a kitten from a tree before hopping over to the hospital, or did you think that'd be laying it on a bit thick?" John asked derisively.
Chas glared at him. "Hey, laugh all you want. But she bought it."
John raised an eyebrow, his interest suddenly peaked. "'She'?"
Chas smiled cockily; glad to see that, for once, he had an experience that John could be jealous. "Uh-huh. Just a few months out of med school and I bet I know how she got her high marks…"
John rolled his eyes. "Yeah, sure, Chas," he said in skepticism.
Chas frowned. "No, I mean it! She was hott, John!" When John didn't respond and instead turned on the small TV, Chas's irritated flared. He sneered over the new-cast coming in on the TV, "Hotter than any chick you've ever banged."
"Shut up," John snapped, but it was lacking a very authoritative tone, as if he were distracted.
"And Des doesn't count! I mean, come on, exactly how many attractive women have you actually-"
"I said, shut up, Chas," John growled dangerously. But he wasn't angry about what Chas had said; it didn't even seem that he'd been listening. He was looking at the TV, listening to the news report.
Chas looked at the TV too, and he knew why John had been distracted.
The professional black woman reporter with her sensibly cut hair was reporting in from 'the field' with a backdrop of cop cars, their red and blue lights a little distracting to the viewer.
"...the body is as of yet unidentified, though police do believe that he was homeless, and possibly a drug addict. Again, this is the third killing in the Sin District in the past three weeks. Police do believe that this is a serial killer. However, the previous two victims were women prostitutes. This latest victim is a homeless male, baffling investigators."
She was distracted for a moment, looked at someone who was apparently positioned behind the camera, probably a part of the crew.
"Yes. All right, now we have a picture of the body coming in right now and we recommend that younger and sensitive viewers do not view the photo, that only mature viewers watch the photo we are about to show." Her eyes then went to another area off screen, probably the prompter. Just before the photo went up, the reporter's face faltered and her eyes went wide.
"Oh my god-"
And then she was gone, and the photo was up.
Chas thought he was going to throw up. It looked more like an attempt at modern art than a human being. Blood, ranging from shades of scarlet to deep purple, dominated the photo, splattered everywhere. Pink flesh could be discerned, and the remaining grey of the beard (the rest was stained red). You could see in the lower half of the picture strange white sticks…
Oh god…his ribs… Chas thought in stunned horror, just like the ones you barbeque…
That thought, grilling a human being's ribs on one of those charcoal grills… 'Kids! Ribs are done!'…you feast on them…Biting into the soft meat…tearing the meat right off of the bone with your teeth, exposing ivory bone…
Chas got up and ran to the bathroom, the vomit already rising in his throat.
John didn't seem to notice. He too was studying the photo, but he, unlike Chas, had the gift of being able to distance himself without getting sick. True, had he been hunting for the beast instead of at Eden, he might have saved the man. But he needed to know what he was hunting. And it was a huge bonus to know that he could be banishing Balthazar before the day was out.
Yes, the man's lower torso had basically been ripped apart, like when you rip up the wrappings of a Christmas present. John, remembering 10th grade anatomy, noted that the man was missing his liver. Human livers were a delicacy to many kind of demons. However, this didn't look like the killer had really been aiming for the liver, only had come across it and chosen to take it on a whim. Well, that was odd. And it didn't help John.
Then a thought occurred to him: What does it matter? I'm going after Balthazar tonight. Soon this'll all be over.
Yet, it didn't really sit right. Something just didn't fit. Why would Balthazar want those two hookers and this homeless guy dead? And why killed in seemingly random methods? They were all pummeled and pulled apart, but all in different ways. It didn't fit with any ritualistic sacrifices he knew of. Most sacrifices are relatively clean, fit precise patterns, and are conducted in relatively constant manners. These killings didn't fit into any of that. Another odd circumstance was the killing in Sacramento. Another woman killed, but John didn't remember hearing that she'd been a prostitute. In ritualistic sacrifices, the sacrifices were usually conducted in the same exact spot. If otherwise, it's to fit a pattern, like one in the shape of a pentagram. But one killing in Sacramento and three in LA didn't have any location pattern. It was just…random.
And come to think of it, Lilith didn't say that Balthazar was actually responsible for all this…
John shook his head. What the hell was wrong with him? He was finally getting the chance to banish him back to hell! Why was he having these second thoughts?
It would end tonight, he swore silently to himself.
Chas stumbled back into the room, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. The news cast had gone back to the studio, and the anchorman had moved on to a story about a filthy restaurant on Sunset Blvd.
"John," the kid said shakily as he sat back down, "That…that could've been me."
John turned around, turning off the TV with the remote. Chas was sitting there, staring at nothing, his eyes wide. His palms were flat on the table.
"If…if I hadn't honked the horn…if that thing had grabbed me…that would've been it. I would've…I would've…" Chas didn't seem able to be say it.
So, John said it for him. "Dead," he said simply
"Yeah…" Chas said in almost a whisper.
John shrugged as he took out a cig. "So?"
Chas looked at him and looked extremely hurt. "What? You mean you wouldn't care?" he asked in disbelief.
"Look, kid, you believe in heaven, right?"
"After this 'internship'? Yeah."
"Okay. So why're you scared?"
Chas paused. "Well…"
John cut him off. "What exactly have you done that's so horrible?" he asked coldly.
Chas didn't answer. He hadn't. And he understood that John was offended that he, Chas, had gotten upset when he had little chance of being hell-bound, while John was damned, and could very possibly never be redeemed.
He swallowed. He stood up and said, "Okay. I'll…I'll go and, uh, wait for you to call, I guess."
John blew some smoke in Chas's general direction as the kid walked past.
Before leaving, Chas paused at the door.
He meant to say 'I'm sorry', but he just got out "John, I'm-"
But John cut him off with a gruff, "Don't be."
Even though he thought John was being cold, Chas took the exorcist's words as kindness. With that, he left.
