Disclaimer: I own nothing to do with Constantine/Hell blazer
A/N: heres the second chapter – I hope you enjoy!
Chapter Two – subjects, Roommates and broken books.
John walked slowly back to his apartment above the bowling alley musing over what Midnite had told him about Serefina, about her powers and her past. She had been murdered at the age of five along with her entire family who had all been at her cousins christening meal; it had been a massacre that had made the papers and sickened the country. Serefina had gone to Heaven but paramedics who had been called to the scene by nearby residents who had heard the commotion and discovered the scene, had managed to revive Serefina bringing her straight back to Earth. Only when she returned she wasn't quite the same, she had visions that weren't quite right and the nuns at the orphanage that she had been sent to had sent word to the local priests about a child they believed to be possessed by Evil spirits.
It wasn't a priest that came to see the child though, it was a man with blonde hair and a crisp suit that came one autumn morning and asked to see the girl. When Serefina had been presented to him she had smiled and taken his hand and they had walked out of the building without even saying a word to each other. Serefina trusted angels, Midnite explained that the blonde haired man had been Gabriel who had become somewhat of a mentor to Serefina, and the angel had helped her to develop her powers. At the age of eighteen however Serefina was sent into the big bad world to fend for herself, which she had been doing now for eleven years.
John climbed up the last few stairs that led to his landing, but instead of entering his apartment he crossed to the opposite side of the landing and opened the door opposite to his and entered into the apartment without knocking on the door, the site that met him almost made him laugh, but the sound didn't quite escape his lips because that would ruin his reputation.
The room was large, like Johns but unlike John's it looked lived in. The room had a couch in the corner next to the window in front of which was a coffee table that was littered with paranormal magazines and dusty old books. At the far end of the room was the kitchenette area, with a stove, fridge, sink area, two cupboards of the wall and a small round table with three chairs around it. All of the walls were covered with newspaper clippings, posters, pages torn from books, photocopies and religious paintings, sticky notes and odd looking pagan symbols; the walls underneath these things were painted a deep red. There was a door that led off from the kitchen area to the bathroom and bedroom area of the apartment. Behind the front door that John had just walked through, opposite the windows and in between the lounge area and the kitchen area was a huge desk and several bookcases along the sides of it and a few shelves on the wall behind it. The bookcases were crammed full of books of different ages, sizes and colours, the shelves were overflowing with jars, trinket boxes, storage boxes and ornaments. The desk itself was a grand affair. There was a computer that sat on the right side of the desk, nearest the kitchen; it had sticky notes all over the sides of the screen. The rest of the desk was taken up with huge piles of papers, old and new there was a small pot that contained pens, pencils, quills and a small assortment of other stationary items. There were also boxes around the front and sides of the desk that contained books and small, unidentifiable objects. To finish off the mess there was a large book opened on a page that had been marked with a piece of old leather that was leaning against one of the piles of paper and looked like it would fall off at any moment.
John didn't take in any of this 'mess' however, as he was used to it. His attention had fallen to the girl that lay sprawled across the desk asleep. She has short black hair that was messy and sticking up at odd angles. She was wearing a crumpled and baggy white shirt that she had rolled up at the sleeves, her green glasses were propped up on her forehead and she was facing away from John. One of her arms was spread over the large book, undoubtedly holding it in place, she had a black leather watch on the wrist of this arm, the other arm was folded under her chest.
John quietly closed the door behind him and moved slowly over to the desk, the girl didn't move. John walked past the desk and into the kitchen area; he picked up one of the chairs from around the table and took it over to the desk. He placed it directly opposite to where the girl was slouched in her chair and sat down on it. John looked at the girl and smiled, she looked peaceful in her sleep, like she had no troubles in the world, he almost didn't want to do what he was about to do - but he did it anyway.
John reached down to a piece of paper that laid in one of the boxes at the front of the desk and picked it up, sitting up straight he took the paper in his left hand and with his right he screwed it up into a ball. Once he was satisfied with the paper ball he launched
it at his victim and folded his arms when it made landed on her head.
The dream had been a nice one, which was unusual. She had been sat on the edge of a fountain in the middle of a village square that she didn't recognise. The sun was warm on her face and the water was cool oh her hand that she was idly waving through it. She had watched the people passing by and she could smell the flowers from the pots that had been dotted around the square, it had been peaceful - until the huge boulder had fallen out of the sky and hit her in the head.
Jamey woke with a start and sat up in her chair, a piece of paper stuck to her forehead and she sighed and slowly peeled it off while yawning slightly. The paper came away easily enough and she got her sight back, and that's when she noticed John Constantine sat infront of her.
'Welcome back Jamey' he said in his deep voice, a humorous look in his eyes, Jamey sat there for a few seconds, droopy eyed and sleepy, her voice finally found itself and she replied to his sarcastic comment 'ooh aren't we full of humour tonight Mr Exorcist?' she asked him sleepily, 'and do you know what time it is?' she asked pointing at her watch that showed it was 6:22am, without waiting for an answer she switched on the pc monitor and stood up clumsily sending her chair into the wall behind her and made her way to the kitchen area and pulled a carton of orange juice out of the fridge.
John watched her out of the corner of his eye; he found everything about the girl hysterical even when she was trying to be serious, she was the only person who had made him laugh in the last four months without even trying. She flipped the top off of the carton and gulped down a few mouthfuls of the juice and then made her way back to the desk, carton still in her hand.
The white shirt she wore was tucked in to the left of her black-corded jeans, yet the right side was untucked and reached down to just above her knees. When she reached the desk she placed the carton on the desk and leant back in her chair, 'and what do you want?' she asked eyeing John up, as though she could guess the answer from what he was wearing.
'Why do you sleep on your desk?' he asked her, 'you have a bed in there, you could sleep in it' John stated not answering her question.
'What do you want John?' she asked him again smiling slightly and ignoring his question but John didn't answer, he just looked at her.
They stared at each other for a minute or two and then Jamey broke the silence, 'fine be Mr. Mysterious for all I care, just next time you want to come over all mystical and mysterious don't come in here and wake me up, now either tell me what the hell you want or I will be forced to do something that I don't want to do John, its your choice' she said pulling her glasses off of her forehead and placing them on her desk in front of her, sitting forwards in her chair and narrowing her eyes.
'I want…'John started his sentence and looked at the computer monitor…Jameys eyes widened with understanding, 'oh I see…well why didn't you say so your highness' she said standing and bowing slightly.
John rolled his eyes and watched her as she grabbed the carton of juice off of the desk and slowly made her way towards the door that led to her bedroom. He watched from his seat as she held her hand on the door handle for a few seconds and then breathed in deeply and opened it and walked through, as the door closed behind her he shook his head and smiled, he promised himself that he would get to the bottom of the mystery of Jamey and her fear of her bedroom one day soon.
John stood up from the kitchen chair and made his way around her desk and sat in her seat, he focused on the pc screen and logged into his email account and was pleased to see that he had an email from 'Jim', one of his many contacts.
When Midnite has initially contacted him about collecting Serefina Black, John had emailed Jim straight away. Jim worked for the LAPD as a computer technician and whenever John wanted to find something out about anybody he just contacted Jim who had access to the whole system.
John opened the email was bitterly disappointed with the contents.
"John mate, sorry to say I could find nothing on your friend Serefina Black, she had a file but somebody had deleted it, I tried following the traces but they all led to a dead end, Sorry I can't be of any help, 'Jim,'"
John swore and hit the desk – he regretted this as the sudden shudder sent the huge book sliding off of the desk, John reached across the desk to grab the book but only succeeded in sending papers flying everywhere, 'Fuck!' John swore as he stood up, the cover had been torn from the book and papers lay all over the floor. As he made his way around the desk to pick the book up he heard the door open behind him and turned to see Jamey walk out.
John felt like a little kid that had just been discovered drawing on the walls with felt tips. The door clicked shut behind Jamey and her eyes wandered from the empty desk over to the book, the book cover and then papers scattered all over the floor, her eyes finished on John. John swallowed and opened his mouth to explain what had happened but was interrupted by Jamey who burst into a fit of laughter, 'have fun?' she asked wiping a tear from her grey eyes, John sneered and started picking pieces of paper up, soon the pair of them were busy picking up the paper, small giggles erupting from Jamey occasionally.
Soon all the documents were gathered up and John was placing them on the desk, Jamey handed him the last few pieces she had just picked up and he put them on the pile when one of them caught his attention. He pulled it from the pile and studied it. It was a picture of a woman who had long black curly hair and cheery blue eyes – Serefina.
John looked up at Jamey who turned to face him when she felt his stare, 'what's wrong?' she asked him seeing the look on his face, he handed her the photo and she looked at it, confusion slowly creeping over her face, 'who is it?' she asked him looking up at him, 'you don't know her?' he asked.
Jamey shook her head and leant against the desk, 'some guy came here a few days ago, left me a whole file on this woman – he said he needed to find her and wanted me to track her down for him', John raised his eyebrow at this, 'I told him I wasn't a detective but he said I was the person he needed to track her down, apparently I had the right "expertise" for the job, he said he would pay me generously if I found what he needed so I took the job' she said handing the photo back to John.
'I haven't really gotten around to it yet' she said shrugging, 'what are you doing?' she asked as John picked up the files that the picture had been attached to,
'these those files?' he asked, Jamey frowned but nodded,
'yeah…why, hey what the hell?' she asked as John grabbed her trench coat from the back of her apartment door and threw it at her,
'put it on and follow me' he said walking out of the room with the files under his arm. Jamey held onto her trench coat but didn't put it on or follow John, it was too early, besides she had no idea what he was on about. She turned to throw her coat onto the sofa but before she could John had re-entered her apartment and grabbed her arm with his free arm and proceeded to drag her out of her apartment.
John dragged Jamey all the way to the street outside of the bowling apartment before she could break from his grip, 'gees John I can walk you know!' she said throwing her coat on the beat away the early morning chill.
John and Jamey walked on in silence, Jamey had no clue where they were going but she followed him anyway, she had learnt within weeks of meeting John that his intelligence was the kind that made sense as it progressed, it was best to not question him but to wait for events to fold out.
Serefina thanked the maintenance man once more before walking through her newly fixed door and closing it behind her. She signed and leant against it and breathed in deeply – so the day hadn't started out quite as she had planned, she had found her closest friend ever had tried to kill the whole of human kind by unleashing the son of Satan onto the Earth, oh and throw in the news that Beelzebub was also out to get her, absolutely brilliant, just what she needed. Serefina sighed and made her way into the kitchen, there was only one way to get rid of the stress induced headache and that was hot chocolate, nothing else would do.
Serefina sat on the sofa and tucked her feet underneath her, and sipped the chocolate drink, heaven, 'nothing can spoilt this' she thought to herself, little did she know that she had just jinxed the whole thing.
There was a loud knock at the door, Serefina jumped at the sound and turned to face the door, the loud knocking came again and Serefina made her way to the door, she opened it slowly and was shocked to find John Constantine stood there with a teenage girl, 'you?' Serefina asked,
John sniffed at her stupid statement and stepped into the apartment as she stood aside to allow them in. When both of them had entered to room Serefina closed the door behind them and walked over to stand by the sofa, 'what do you want?' she asked looking directly at John.
John didn't answer Serefina but turned to look at Jamey, 'Jamey meet your subject, Serefina Black.'
Jamey turned to look at John who handed the file to Serefina, Serefina opened the cover and gasped as she quickly read the contents of the first page, all the details about her and her life were written there, she looked at the girl with John with confusion on her face, 'who the hell are you?' she asked her, Jamey swallowed,
'I was about to ask the same' she said snatching the file back from Serefina. John prised the file from Jamey's grip and put in back under his arm,
'I think we all have a bit of explaining to do' he said pointing to the seating area, all three of them sat down.
Serefina spoke first, 'so are you John's apprentice?' she asked Jamey who laughed, John smiled slightly,
'Jamey is the niece of an old friend of mine, her Uncle used to provide me with my information and artefacts and stuff, he died a few months ago helping me out' he explained swallowing the memory of his old friend.
'Beeman had written to Jamey beforehand telling her that he thought something might happen to him and that if it did she had to come and find me and carry on in his role, which she did.' Jamey nodded as he finished his explanation.
'I see' Serefina said, 'Maybe I should explain about the file' Jamey said and without waiting for an answer she told Serefina what she had told John about the man that had offered her payment in return for detective work.
Serefina listened and sighed, it was all too weird. 'Do you think it was Beelzebub?' she asked John, who nodded in answer.
Jamey frowned 'Beelzebub? as in the right hand man of Satan?' she asked. John and Serefina nodded and Jamey swallowed at the thought of the Demonic man having been in her apartment.
'I don't think it is safe for you to stay here' John said to nobody in particular, 'you should move in with Jamey until we get to the bottom of this whole Beelzebub thing' he said standing up.
'Wait…I don't think…' Serefina started as John made his way to the door, both women watched him as he stopped at the door and turned to face them both, Serefina had stood up but Jamey looked at him from where she sat. 'The last place he will look for you is with the person he set on your trail' John stated, 'plus you'll be right next to my apartment, its safer' and with that he left.
'I don't need your protection!' Serefina shouted at the door, she turned to look at Jamey who smiled 'hi roomy!' she said sarcastically, Serefina sighed and grabbed her coat, 'is he always like this?' she asked Jamey who smiled,
'he's okay once you get to know him, but up until that point he is a miserable sod', Serefina smiled slightly, relived to find that she wasn't the only one to think this of the Exorcist,
'Well then, home James!' she said smiling, Jamey rolled her eyes,
'its Jamey, not James and don't go thinking you can give me a nickname because I swear I'll curse you or something' she continued to mutter as she walked out of the apartment,
Serefina licked her lips, ' oh boy' she sighed and followed the teenager out of the room, she couldn't help but think that the next few days were going to be very eventful to say the least.
A.N: thanks to those who reviewed the first chapter, I really appreciate all feedback hope you enjoyed this chapter too!
Stay tuned for the next instalment.
