So, this kicks off the second fic that I've ever done. I'm really excited about it. As stated in the summary, this is a Yuugiou/Constantine crossfic. It's kind of a strange combination, but I'd been watching Constantine repeatedly, and it sparked something in my psyche.

Anyway, basically one has to imagine Seto and Jonouchi aslivingcharacters rather than animated ones in order for this to make sense. Otherwise it seems like there's a random television around every turn that people can talkwith animated characters through.All of this is probably obvious, but for those of you who didn't quite get it from the summary, now it's explained. I wouldn't want people getting really confused while reading it.

Jonouchi and Seto don't have much of a part in this first chapter, but I promisethat they'll have a much more significant role later on. They're going to have to if I want this fic to turn out the way that I want it to.

So yes, here's the first chapter. Official kick off, whoo!

Son of Perdition

Chapter 1

It was just after midnight in Los Angeles when a man began his raid on a liquor store. The man appeared to be very flustered by something, though no one knew what the trouble was. No one seemed to care much either, because when the man wrenched open one of the doors to the chilled wine bottles and began to drink at will, no one said or did anything. In fact, all that happened in response was the throwing around of disgusted looks.

The man grabbed a bottle of cheap wine at random, opened it, and then threw it back onto the rack. He couldn't drink anything. It wasn't that he didn't like the taste. He physically couldn't. There was no wine coming out. Frustration and fear consumed the man's heart: the one thing that he needed most right then was alcohol, but no matter how many bottles he opened, not so much as a single drop left the lip of the glass bottle. He tried again; nothing. He threw that bottle back onto the rack too.

"What the hell kind of a place is this?" the man asked rhetorically, his voice desperate. He was desperate, too. He shot a quick glance down at the palm of his left hand, and his desperation grew. Giving up with the chilled wine rack, he stumbled his way to a previously unvisited part of the store, completely neglecting the fact that the wine was perfectly content to pour merrily from the bottle on its own. As he did so he began breaking the bottles open instead, feeling confident that there was no way any drop of alcohol could stay in the bottle when the neck had been completely broken off. He was wrong, though. The alcohol simply refused to come out.

Something really screwy is going on, he thought. He shot yet another look at his palm, this time jumping and letting out a squeal like a stuck pig. Whatever invisible thing on his hand was quite plain to him. He doubled over. He felt waves of a wicked pain run from his hand all over his body. Whatever the unique power he held in his hands had come in contact with should not have been present in that body. It was evident to him though; he didn't care what the papers or the police said: that woman, however psychotic, did not kill herself simply because she was a tenant in a psych ward. Something had gotten to her, something that definitely, definitely should not have been here.

He hastily dropped the bottle he held with his right hand and moved on to the next freestanding rack, not caring what he was reaching for. Anxiety was working on his body like a poison, and in his haste he failed to notice that the alcohol from the bottle he dropped spread all over the floor when the bottle shattered.

It was in these last few moments of quasi-satanic embargo on drink that the man realized the full severity of what was engraved invisibly into his left palm, and what he had discovered since the exorcist had asked for his help. He knew that his time was over, that there was nothing he could do to stop the inevitable fact that he was going to die right there in that store, bare inches from what he needed to calm his nerves. Inches from what he thought might save him. The time of selfishness was over. Now he had to do whatever he could to point the exorcist in the right direction. Clues would be needed if the darkness that the man knew was planed to be unleashed onto the earth was to be stopped.

Dropping the bottle currently in his hand, he stumbled forward and reached with an outstretched arm toward some cork screws in a clear plastic container on the counter, inadvertently knocking them over. They fell to the ground, and he landed with a thud behind them, drool dripping in long, stringy streams from his lower lip. Crawling sluggishly toward them, his mind was focused solely on getting his hands on one of the cork screws. He did not notice the new arrival with slicked back hair enter wearing the sharpest of pinstripe gray suits. This new arrival, who had come at the request of a superior…something within whatever his line of work was, pretended that he took no notice of the man sprawled all over the entrance to the store and instead made his way to the back. In truth, the man on the floor was the whole reason he was there. After all, he and his side of the great conflict couldn't let their plan be known before they were ready to reveal it themselves. His superiors said that it was for safety. The sharp dressed man thought that his superiors had control issues.

The man on the floor, who was now drooling worse than ever, had finally obtained and unscrewed one of the screws. "John," the man croaked in expenditure before raising the screw high above his head, then driving it deep into his left palm. His feeble attempts to stifle his yells as he drove the screw again and again into his hand were no use. The pain was too great. Again and again and again he thrust the screw into his palm, carving out a single, bloody symbol deep into his flesh. Finally, with one last sob, he rolled over onto his back and laid there, outflows of liquid issuing from his mouth in rapid succession. He was dead.

Over at the check stand, two men stood holding hands, staring in awe at what they had just witnessed.

"This is the last time we ever come to America."

"But the worst demons are the ones that aren't allowed to be here – the ones that are half-human so they blend in…"

John went on to explain to Angela about the influence pushers, the half-breeds, over his plate of scrambled eggs. Angela was captivated by what she was hearing, drinking in every word. Having witnessed the man before her incinerate quite a few winged demonic creatures, which John had assured here were indeed demons, she felt that she had little reason to believe that he was lying now. He explained how he had been able to see things since he was a little boy, how his parents had subjected him to treatments as bad as electro-shock therapy, and something called the Balance, which he believed was "hypocritical bullshit".

"You tried to kill yourself."

"I didn't try anything. Officially I was dead for two minutes, but when you cross over, time stops. Take it from me, two minutes in hell is a lifetime."

John Constantine was quite an extraordinary man. Or so he seemed to any sane person who was still open minded enough to believe just about anything. Angela realized that this pretty much included only John and herself. Still, she found a curious trust arise between herself and the man that she had only met a few hours ago, and it was enough for her to confide in him something that she had kept to herself since she was a very little girl. Almost immediately afterwards, her cell phone rang.

"Dodson," she said.

"Why didn't you call me you son of a bitch?"

That was all that John could say when he saw Hennessey's body at the crime scene within the liquor store. If he was completely truthful he would have said that he missed Hennessey already. In his line of work, however, the truth was usually an obscure thing, and if you wanted to survive you had to be equally obscure. He couldn't afford to let the enemy know that he held attachments, and in order to do that he had to pretend that his remorse only extended so far as to mourn the loss of a priest, not the loss of a friend.

And so it came to pass that he examined the body as a body. He had wanted to pursue a career in forensics before he died. He had had to put that want on hold, however, since he had begun deporting half-breeds. Now, with the death of his friend and the body right in front of him, he had an opportunity to do what little he had taught himself about forensic analysis. He checked for everything he knew to check for, which in this case only meant foreign hairs. He doubted that there would be any nail clippings or random bits of DNA that did not belong to Hennessey himself. Still, just before he was about to conclude that he would get nothing from the body, he caught a glimpse of something bloody on Hennessey's left hand. Further examination with an ice cube revealed that the bloody something was not on Hennessey's left hand, but in it. Taking a white handkerchief from the inside pocket of his overcoat, John Constantine placed it over the cuts in Hennessey's palm. The blood was now wet again, and Constantine managed to get an imprint of a devilish looking mark.

"…drown himself in alcohol in under a minute. Guy could have been a member of my fraternity."

"Were there any witnesses?" asked Angela, the scene making her automatically resume her role of detective.

"Oh, there were a bunch of people here who witnessed the incident, Detective Dodson. But you know how some people are. They see something creepy like this and they go running like headless chickens. There were two people who stayed, though. Two foreign guys. Say they're from Japan," the other detective replied.

"I'd like to question them."

"I already have."

"Well, I'd like to question them again."

"Alright, whatever. The two seemed pretty shocked when I talked to them. Tight as clams. I don't think they're ready to open up quite yet, but be my guest."

Angela nodded. "John, come here, there's two guys I'd like you to help me question."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," the other detective interrupted. "You didn't say anything about him being involved." He shot John a vindictive look.

"Detective, if we're going to figure out what happened here there are questions that I'm going to need Mr. Constantine's help asking."

The other man looked from Angela to John, and then back to Angela. He shot John another vindictive look, shrugged, and walked out of the building. John and Angela made there way to the backroom, were two men, one with long blond locks and the other slightly shorter brown hair, sat waiting to be let go. It was apparent that they were very anxious to return to where ever they were staying. The blonde was actually bouncing up and down on the small wooden table upon which he and the other man sat. Angela approached the table.

"Hi, I'm detective Dodson," Angela said, shaking their hands, "and this is…detective Constantine of the… special occult division within the LAPD. We'd like to ask you a few questions, if you don't mind."

So yeah, that's that. I'm really excited to see what people think. Actually, I'm really excited in general. I had an awesome day at ballet; I got a lot done around the house. All in all, a very productive and very fulfilling day. But yeah, I'd be lying if I said that I didn't want people's opinions and such. So yeah, let me know what you think.