VI. Neutral Territory and then Open Game
Men, thought Ophelia as she drummed her fingers on the dashboard of the taxi. Stay here; stay there; you might hurt yourself; you can't handle it. What morons. Ugh, if the kid wasn't here right now I would just walk right in there and knock him on the side of his head. What's so important about this damn club, anyway? There's all halfbreeds in there.
"So... uh... you come here often?" Chas' voice interrupted her reverie, and Ophelia turned to him.
"Are you testing pick up lines on me?" she demanded, irritated.
"No... well, maybe. I don't know. It's so nice to have someone here besides me. It gets a little creepy talking to myself all the time," he replied awkwardly with an innocent shrug.
"You do that too? Thank God I killed my psychiatrist, he was trying to pass me off as crazy," Ophelia commented. Bored and annoyed, she slammed her hands on the dashboard. "That's it, I'm relating with a kid, I'm going in there."
She opened the car door, and ignoring Chas' calls, entered Papa Midnite's. A huge muscular bouncer stood at the bottom of a flight of stairs, and Ophelia eyed him, wondering if she could take him out if she needed to. The room was stuffy, and Ophelia removed her leather jacket. Beyond, she could hear the sound of loud music, conversation, and what sounded like the squealing of a pig.
"Um... hi?" she tried on the bouncer who replied only by picking up what looked like a tarot card and holding it up with the back facing her. "Why... why are you doing that?"
"You have to guess what's on the other side," came Chas' voice and she realized that he had followed her into the club. He stood next to her, hands in pockets, looking almost hopeful. Ophelia glanced at the card and got an idea. She sat down on the bottom step and looked up at the man holding the card. It was now angled that the light shined through the card and she could see the image on the other side.
"Is that... a swan kissing... a toad?" she asked, having difficulty interpreting the picture. The bouncer nodded and unhooked the velvet rope that blocked her from the club. Chas looked at her hopefully. "Um, he's with me."
The bouncer nodded, and the two crossed the velvet rope.
"That was cool, thanks," Chas said, looking around suspiciously. Ophelia stopped him before they entered the main part of the club.
"Stay near me, okay? If you don't and I leave, then it's your ass," she warned him, and the teen gulped and nodded. Together, they crossed the threshold and were hit by the loud music. The room was very dimly lit, but Ophelia could see their glowing eyes nonetheless. "What is this place?"
"Neutral territory," Chas whispered in her ear. "Both angel and demon halfbreeds reside here. They can't hurt us because it's not allowed, but..."
"But once we leave the club we're free game," she finished his sentence. "I guess we better behave."
A large group of people gyrated on the dance floor, and the sheer mass of halfbreeds surprised Ophelia. She had no idea there would be so many. Chas was looking at some of the more scantily clad female halfbreeds, but Ophelia pulled him away before he could ask them if they came there often. She had no idea who exactly they were looking for, so she searched the room for Constantine's pale face.
"In the back," Chas told her, and pulled her towards the far wall from the entrance. Suddenly a startlingly familiar scent filled Ophelia's nose. The scent of sulphur and fire. Drawing a silver dagger, she whipped around and found herself facing one of the half breeds.
"You're human," he stated, sounding surprised. "I advise you put the dagger away before you get in trouble."
Ophelia nodded, seeing his point and sheathed the dagger without another word.
"You may be wondering why I was surprised you were human," the halfbreed started, moving closer to Ophelia, who could've guessed the next thing he was going to say. "Because you look like a fallen angel."
"Oh my God," she muttered. "You're a product of divine influence and that's the best pick up line you can come up with? My grandfather picked up women with better lines than that one. I'll give it to you that it works considering the circumstances in which we met, but honestly, do you really pride yourself in such a horrible line? I mean, that one could quite possibly be worse than 'I lost my phone number, can I have yours'. If you keep trying to pick girls up with that one, then you're going to be a very lonely, lonely man. How 'bout you make your way back to the bar, drink another shot, and then go home, because I think you just rendered every girl in the room incapable of becoming interested in anything beyond a full night's sleep with that 'winner'."
Looking extremely disappointed and irritated, the halfbreed made his way back to the bar as she had commanded. Chas was gaping at her in surprise.
"You really hate pickup lines, don't you?" he asked.
"More than Jehovah's Witness," she replied nonchalantly and continued pushing her way through the room to the back.
The door's concealed, Ophelia realized.
"There's a code or something like that," Chas informed Ophelia, who was getting increasingly irritated. Finally, she just kicked the wall as hard as she could.
"John Constantine you are going to let me in here right now or I'm carving your name into everyone in this room's carcus!" she shouted. The door swung open after a moment of thought, and Ophelia dragged Chas into Papa Midnite's office with her.
Constantine sat in front of a desk, looking back at her with irritation clearly writ on his face, but Ophelia wasn't paying attention to him. She was looking at the man behind the desk. At first glance, he was a tall African man with a velvet suit and a hat covering his shaved head. But an intense wisdom, the wisdom of the ages, seemed to radiate from his very flesh. She immediately respected the man, though she had never met before in her life.
"This is neutral territory, young lady," Midnite told her, looking at her not in anger but in curiousity. "There will be no carving up of halfbreeds here."
"Hey, it got me in, didn't it?" she asked and the man nodded. He seemed to be surveying her trustworthiness, just as Balthazar had done. Ophelia stood there in silence for a moment and glanced around the room. It seemed to be filled with all sorts of ancient artifacts. Perhaps Midnite was a collector.
"I thought I told you to stay in the car," came Constantine's voice.
"I was getting restless," she replied and pulled over a chair to sit next to him across from Midnite. Chas stationed himself behind her, staring at Midnite with poorly disguised awe. "So has he told you everything you need to know yet?"
"No. He's starting on that neutral bullshit again," Constantine replied. Ophelia found herself surprised that he would speak in such a way in front of a man like Midnite, but he didn't seem to respect authority so she didn't say anything.
"You have to understand Ophelia, this is basically the last neutral territory there is, and I want to uphold it. By helping him out, I'm leaning towards one side, and I'd be going against my own rules," Midnite explained to her.
"Can't you just bend them a little for us? It's really important," she asked, shifting uncomfortably in her seat. "The scales are being tipped. You don't want that, now do you? You can maintain the balance by tipping them more on our side."
"And whose side are you on? You're here with Constantine, but you have the brand of Satan on your arm, and you tried to kill him yesterday."
"Well you know how every once in a while, you have a really bad day? Well multiply that by a katrillion and you get how yesterday was for me. Believe me, you'd be attempting to kill people too," Ophelia replied light heartedly. She was tempted to put her leather jacket on and cover up the brand on her arm, but it was too warm to do so. "Jeez, did your air conditioning break?"
Constantine, Chas and Midnite were all wearing jackets. And they glanced at her for a moment before continuing in their arguement as to why Midnite should tell them what he knew. Ophelia, meanwhile, felt as if she was in Death Valley in a winter coat. Feeling as if the leather pants had been a horrible mistake, she stood and began pacing, trying to calm herself. She was starting to feel dizzy and sick to her stomach.
"Are you okay?" Chas asked her quietly.
"Yeah... I'm just anxious to get out of here. Those halfbreeds are making me nervous," she replied.
"Listen, I don't even know exactly what's going on okay, Constantine," she heard Midnite say, and focused her attention on him. "The scales are being tipped, I know. That alone can cause a fluctuation in the borders between earth, heaven and hell. But for it to be as violently as you claim it is, then it means that there's more than just a tipping of the scales. It would have to be that one side is just knocking the whole thing over. Maybe working on an interplanar jump, if you know what I mean."
"I for one, don't know what you mean," Ophelia volunteered. Everyone else in the room seemed to know what was going on, and she immediately felt like the kid in elementary school that was a little slower than the rest.
"Heaven, hell, and earth are all on different planes of existence. Like alternate universes. Hell in itself is made up of ten different universes. The surface, which mirrors earth's surface except destroyed and wracked by winds that tears anything in it apart; and then the nine layers of hell, which are nine seperate universes. No one on earth knows how many universes make up heaven, though there are probably ten, like hell. I don't find it strange that mankind would know more about hell than heaven," Midnite informed her. "Especially not in this day and age."
"So you're telling us that one side is tipping the scales to weaken the borders and pull something through?" Constantine asked, but Midnite shrugged.
"I'm not telling you anything, I'm neutral," he reminded Constantine. Constantine sighed and popped a piece of Nicorette in his mouth and chewing angrily, left the room. Saying goodbye to Midnite, Chas and Ophelia followed him.
Constantine absorbed this new information as he made his way through the club, Ophelia hot on his heels, dragging Chas behind her. How exactly were they tipping scales? Were there more demon halfbreeds then angels now? Or was God losing the bet he had with Lucifer? It was entirely possible, especially when Constantine thought about how the world was these days. The bouncer let them leave the club and he pounded up the stairs. Chas caught up with him, but before they reached the door, Constantine realized that Ophelia had considerably slowed.
She was visibly warm, and when he took her hand to help her up the last set of stairs, it felt as if his own had caught fire. They stopped in front of the doorway and he took a good look at her. She was breathing heavily and her entire body seemed to be going limp.
"Are you okay?" he asked and Ophelia looked up at him.
"I dunno. I feel weird. I'm probably just coming down with something, a bad flu. No big deal," she replied, though her eyes were shining brightly with worry. "I'll be fine."
Constantine chose to believe her, though he couldn't help but doubt her words, and still holding her hand, led her outside. It was dark, and Constantine realized that the nearby streetlights had been burnt out, leaving the area in pitch blackness.
"In the car, now," he commanded, pushing Ophelia ahead. He could hear the sound of fluttering wings, and he was starting to feel as if they had been followed to Midnite's. Ophelia and Chas heard it is as well, and both halted in mid-step.
"What is that?" she asked Constantine, her face pale.
"Something we don't want to run into. Get in the car," he replied and Ophelia tugged at the doorhandle of the taxi desperately.
"It's locked," she replied, and Chas hit the keyless entry button on his keys. Nothing happened. Ophelia moved to John's door and tried opening it. It didn't even budge. "Oh shit."
"Get back into Midnite's! Go!" Constantine told her and Chas, and Ophelia was about to take off, when she was suddenly picked up by a soaring shadow. As the winged demon lifted her, it and its bretheren began to glow vibrantly, and Constantine and Chas watched in horror as the screaming assassin was attacked by the demons, all fluttering around her like angered birds.
Just as suddenly as the attack had begun, it ended, and she was dropped from the sky. There was a loud click as the doors to the cab unlocked simultaneously. The assassin lay still farther down the street, a crumpled heap upon the road. The streetlights flickered to life and Constantine ran to the prone form, silently praying she was still alive. He knelt on the street next to her and turned the girl over. Ophelia was covered in deep gashes from the demons' talons, and was surrounded by a pool of blood.
"Come on, be alive, Ophelia. Wake up. You're just hurt, come on. You can't be dead," he muttered to Ophelia's unmoving body. She shuddered slightly and her eyes opened blearily. She tried to move, but Constantine took her hand, stopping her. "Don't move, you'll just hurt yourself worse. Chas, back up the car, we'll put her in the back!"
"Sure, John," came Chas' scared sounding voice. The taxi roared to life behind Constantine. Ophelia shivered and Constantine gathered her up in his arms, holding her closely to him. For some reason his heart was flooded with something he was unfamiliar with: fear. Though what exactly the fear was for was uncertain to him, he knew that he had some kind of attachment to the girl dying in his arms.
Carefully, he lifted Ophelia from the ground and laid her into the backseat of Chas' taxi. After a moment of hesitation, he climbed into the back as well, resting her head on his lap.
"It hurts, John," he heard her whisper as they road off into the night.
