Angelfirenze – Thanks for reviewing so many times! I agree, there aren't very many good Constantine fics out there, and there's not very much JohnAngela stuff. When you say it sucks, do you mean the death? Cause if so, yeah, having your throat slit can't be fun. And it is important…(malicious cackle). Thanks for reviewing!

Budgiebird – Thanks! I'm really glad it's suspenseful, it's meant to be, but I wasn't sure if it was coming off. You have a point about Americans not being creative with names…but then again, in Britain, it's still fairly unimaginative. Where I live, there are like four streets called New Road (; Thanks for reviewing!

Evelyn Valerious – That sounds like a good idea for a humourfic actually…Exorcist for hire, comes with own tools and sarcasm. That really made me laugh, your suggestion. I love the Mummy too. Rachel Weisz rocks, period. Thanks for reviewing!

DesertFlowerSimion – Yep, it was Ellie. I really love her. She's just so…demonic and slutty. A fun combination to write (: Thanks for reviewing!

Lovely – I can do no wrong? Awesome…if my parents ever said that to me, I'd probably be in jail within the hour! I'm glad you thought my Constantine was in-character. Why is it that the assholes are the hardest to write? Thanks for reviewing!

Lady Hawke – Ah, don't worry, all will be revealed…It's a bit of an esoteric character really. It's one of the few that was actually based on a Hellblazer character. Thanks for reviewing!

How typical. I say that from now on I'll be updating fortnightly, and then suddenly I manage to update the next week. It's a long one, as well. But I guess I was inspired by waking up last Monday and having 10 reviews overnight. That was awesome, thank you all. And thanks for giving me 50 reviews. You guys rock.

Yeah, this part was kinda inspired by the movie 'The Watcher', which features Keanu Reeves as a serial killer. So it's appropriate in like…four different ways.

I feel pretty ill, so if there are any errors or bits that don't make sense, tell me so I can correct them when I'm feeling human again. But I am having hot cross buns. Which, as my friend LadyOfThieves has proved, are addictive.

Congratulations to Lovely, DesertFlowerSimion and Budgiebird for guessing who the mystery person was – it was Ellie, the slutty half-breed who got mainly cut from the film. She will be back, don't worry…If any of you didn't get my email, yell at me to fix my server and I'll resend.

Chapter IX: Blood

It had to be the first time that Angela had ever been even vaguely glad to enter a crime scene. Before she'd even been able to See, the very aura of a crime scene as violent as this one would have been enough to make the sternest cops falter. She'd seen guys twice her size vomit when they saw the victim of an inventive murderer. The whole atmosphere was disgusting, and it took a very strong person to quell the feelings of horror and revulsion that threatened to overwhelm them. But now, even though Angela started to feel a nauseous sensation in her stomach, she was too intrigued by the atmosphere of the scene to pay much attention to it.

The teenager had been killed in a multi-storey car park, on the third level. The car park was only a few minutes – ten at most – away from the police station, but Angela refused to walk there. It made it all too real. Every step of the journey, she would be thinking about the victim. Would they have walked this way? Would they have been innocently passing by until they were picked out as the murderer's target? Or would they have been walking willingly towards it, not knowing what awaited them within? No. She didn't want to know that. All of her professional life as a cop, she had known that she could understand people well. It was what made her think like a killer and beat him at his own game. But she had also been able to think like a victim, and she didn't like doing that. She had always thought it was luck. But now she knew what it was; her astral light, her psychic sense trying to get out. Now that she recognised it, she could control it. Mostly.

The multi-storey was empty, apart from several vehicles which were probably used by the few people who could afford to go and look around the shops at two in the afternoon on a weekday, as well as people that still hadn't shrugged off their Halloween hangovers to collect their cars, and the last two were obviously abandoned cars, so beat up no-one would want to willingly drive them. But what interested Angela was the chalk outline occupying a space all by itself, and the ominous dark stain that led towards and away from it.

Half the forensics team had been down here, and their equipment still littered the desolate parking lot. But most of them had gone for lunch, or just to get away from the stale, decaying smell that lingered after death, and so the car park was blissfully empty.

Weiss hung back slightly as Angela went forwards. Though he wouldn't admit it, he was worried about her. She had come in this morning, bitten his head off, holed herself up in the locker room and then, once he had shown her the case, she had insisted on coming as quickly as possible. Even though the energy she had seen had been bordering on frenetic, she hadn't said a word in the ride there, just drummed her fingers on the steering wheel impatiently and stared out of the window. He knew that her sister had died a while back, and he didn't expect her to be completely okay. But this was bizarre, this deep anger that seemed to be without a source. Angela had never been the warmest person, in fact, she was freezing cold, but he'd never thought that she would ever show this amount of emotion. It wasn't really like her. But then again, her twin had been a patient at Ravenscar. Maybe it ran in the family…

Weiss didn't really like thinking that. But based on the way Angela was acting, it did seem to fit…

Angela was unaware of Weiss' thoughts, though, if she had concentrated, she would have been able to discern them from the spiritual wavelength that permeated everything. However, she was turning her thoughts towards the victim, evaluating the area. Her footsteps echoed out against the floor; there was no way the murderer would have been able to been able to sneak up on the victim unawares. It was impossible.

Unless…

Unless the victim didn't walk around on two legs.

Angela pushed that thought from her mind. Even though she had strong suspicions – very strong suspicions – that this murder was supernatural, she had to look at it from all angles before she made a judgement.

She tried to picture it in her mind. According to the coroner's initial report, they reckoned that the girl had been killed at about four in the morning. She had been discovered at six or so, by a passer-by. That meant that it would have been dark, and cold. There was little street lighting around the area, and none inside the car park, so it would have been full of shadows. Shadows so long that they would have seemed like they were trying to hold onto whatever part of her body they could touch.

A girl, dressed in black, walking through the car park, her footsteps striking out a rhythmic beat on the soulless concrete. In the darkness, she could feel her body grow tense and alert, just in case. She wished that she had accepted her friend's offer to walk with her to her car. But there wasn't any need. They'd had some fun, gone to some truly atrocious Halloween concert, had a few, but she was fine. Totally in control.

So why were her hands shaking, causing one of her too-large silver rings to rattle round her finger?

A noise from behind her, like a bird's shriek. A crow, or a raven. The noise echoed dramatically, causing her to jump. Once it faded, and her heart returned to its normal rhythm, she relaxed. Nothing to worry about. Just a bird.

Jesus, where was her damn car? It couldn't have been stolen. It was just a beat-up piece of shit, nothing out of the ordinary. So many paint jobs and repairs that it was impossible to tell what sort of car it had been in the first place. It was a mongrel. But it was her mongrel.

As she circled the car park, she could hear the bird again, its chilling note sending shivers down her spine. She broke into a run, trying to escape it, but she didn't even know what she was running from. All she knew was that there was something behind her, so close that she could feel the rush of cold air every time it moved behind her.

She pressed her back against a concrete pillar, feeling its stability. Safe. Immovable. She was okay. The ringing echoes died away behind her, and she listened to the sounds of silence. It was such a welcome sound she could have cried.

Without warning, the sound of the bird's shriek suddenly rose up behind her and kept on coming closer, until it was in her ears, drowning out all other sound. She could feel hands – or what she thought were hands – grasping her bare arms, dragging her away. She struggled, but deep inside of her, she knew it was futile. She could tell just by the way the air chilled, by the way her body froze, that she was about to meet her maker.

Cold metal brushed her neck. A knife? No, it was too delicate for that. A necklace?

Her train of thought was interrupted when more metal brushed over her throat, but this time, she knew it was a knife. At its very touch, the edge just nicking her skin, she flung her hands out, trying to reach her assailant. All she touched was empty air, the too-large ring flying off her finger to land behind her with a metallic echo. It kissed her throat sensuously, just teasing her, before slicing down like it an ordinary table knife slicing warmed butter. Any noise she would have made died in her throat, as her life's blood seeped out down her throat, staining her skin.

Stinging pain brushed her palms, but she could barely feel them anymore. The numbness spread, first from her outmost limbs, and then, towards her heart, her centre.

It ends…it ends…it ends…

Angela stopped herself there, fighting for control of her imagination. She hadn't expected to lose it. And she certainly hadn't expected to tap her own powers and touch the victim's memories. It had taken place in the space of a few seconds, and while it had been disturbing, but not bad. And yet, she knew that there was something strange, something dark, in her mind, waiting for her to let herself go that deep again…

"Angie?" Weiss asked her. "Are you okay?"

Confident in her control, Angela turned to face him, outwardly calm but inwardly annoyed with herself for losing control so obviously. Though she was shaken a little at the unexpected intervention by her psychic senses, the cop in her was dealing with this new information, sorting through it methodically for anything that might be of use.

"Fine" she said simply. "We ought to have a look around. If there was a struggle, there might be some evidence left behind" Like a ring, for example…

Weiss moved further up, scouring along the furthest row of parking spaces against the far wall. Angela however stayed close to the body, searching around that area. A quick glance about confirmed that the pillar the victim had stood against was a couple of metres to her left, and between the pillar and the victim's body there were a few fat droplets of blood, so Angela summarised that the body had been dragged over there after death. Why? Was it too conspicuous where it was?

Something glittered in the darkness, illuminated by one of the narrow shafts of light that managed to penetrate the concrete. Using her Sight as well as the evidence of her eyes, she could see it. It was shining with astral light, and she could see that it was tainted with a psychic residue.

Picking it up, she could see that it was the silver ring she had seen in her vision. Perfectly normal, clearly not too expensive, but nothing out of the ordinary. However, as she tilted the band to the light, she could see that it was coated in a dried black substance, like tar.

An idea hitting her, Angela looked over at the victim, bordered in by oceans of yellow tape. Ducking under it, she approached the body, colder than most because of the clammy, chilling concrete it lay on.

Lifting up the white sheet, she looked at the girl's hands. Studying them, she could see that the psychic stigmata still glowed from her hands, though there was no psychical injury. However, as Angela looked at her fingers, she could see that they too were coated with a similar black substance. Where it had come from though, she had no idea. Judging by the astral light she saw emitting from it, she could guess it wasn't exactly of this world. The forensics people were going to have a field day with this.

Looking towards the victim's face, she noticed something. What attracted her attention was the necklace around the victim's neck. It stood out from her completely black outfit, embellished with silver jewellery, because it had a gold chain and a relatively small pendant. Angela tugged out the pendant from where it lay, half hidden underneath a lapel, and held it in her hand, aghast at what she saw. Her other hand flew to her own neck, where the trinity amulet hung, lying against her skin. She held it in her hand, and compared it to the one worn by the murder victim.

They were one and the same.

The interlocking triangles fit on top of one another perfectly, identical down to the tiny script of Latin words that marched along the curves of the locket.

What the–?

Somewhere, she heard Weiss' cell phone ringing, sending out echoes through the desolate car park. Angela barely noticed though, as her concentration was preoccupied with the amulets. Why did this girl have the same amulet as her?

Her mind flashed back to the vision she had seen. In that, she had felt something metallic being put around the victim's neck before she died. Could that be this?

But then, how could it be a half-breed or even a supernatural death if she was wearing this amulet? Surely that would ward those sorts of demons off?

Her temples throbbed suddenly, threatening a headache. Angela ran one hand through her hair, pulling it away from her face so that she could think better. There had to be some sort of rational explanation for this. She just couldn't see it.

She'd have to talk to John about this. She didn't want to drag him into any of her police business, because, as Weiss had proved after the whole hydrotherapy room Mammon-trying-to-take-over-the-world incident, he'd love to lock John up. It had been hard enough trying to get him off the hook that time. But she'd need his help on something like this. An uneasy feeling in her gut told her that this was much bigger than it looked.

"Angie" Weiss called from the other end, snapping his cell shut. "There's been another one"

No prizes for guessing who the other victim is…

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