The yellow cab pulled up in front of an apartment building. My thoughts about the irony of this story being set in the so-called 'City of Angels' were instantly halted. I looked over to my assignment. Constantine draped his hand out of the open window and let the cigarette he was holding fall. He opened his door and got out. I passed through my door, again wincing as my old scars complained. I walked around the front of the cab. Chas was still sitting in the driver's seat, looking slightly dejected. He knew he wasn't allowed to go with John yet to an actual exorcism. Anput smiled at me. I smiled back and gave her a little wave. By now, Constantine was through the gate. I trotted through the door to catch up with him.
"One of these days you'll have to let Chas come along," I said. "No use having an apprentice if all he does is sit in the car."
John glanced at me. "He'll come when he's ready."
As we strode into the lobby of the apartment building Constantine took out a packet of cigarettes and placed one between his lips. I sighed quietly. It took every ounce of will power not to say anything about his smoking. He wouldn't listen to me even if I did. I glanced away to the small television set showing cartoons with the sound muted. This meant I didn't have to watch as he lit the cigarette with his ornately decorated lighter.
I knew Hennessy was hiding behind a nearby pillar. Constantine probably knew it too. "I think…" Hennessy whispered as he slowly stepped out. "I think I found you one." He approached Constantine, who exhaled smoke. "Look, I called you, right? Soon as I couldn't pull it out myself, I called you, John."
Hennessy seemed a bit nervous. I suspected it was because he was afraid of the demon upstairs. I momentarily focused my energy on sensing the demon. There it was… dangerous and angry. John didn't say a word as he passed Hennessy, opened a gate, and began climbing the stairs to the apartment above. I followed behind him.
Upstairs frightened, confused, and anxious people of a mix of races lined the hall, poking their heads out of their apartments, meandering about. Some studied Constantine as he passed. Some ignored him completely. All of them ignored me. Somewhere, a baby cried. Constantine payed the people no heed as he strode down the hall. He didn't need to be told which apartment it was. He could psychically sense the demon as well. Both of our senses told us we were getting closer.
A man and a woman exited an apartment at the very end of the hall. The man looked distraught and the woman was comforting him. A small bit of what the woman was saying reached my ears. "It's okay, it's okay. We had to tie her down, okay. It's okay." I noticed Constantine spared them a backward glance as they passed us.
"What you're going to find is a young girl, approximately ten or eleven years old, maybe younger," I told Constantine. "As you've just heard, she's been tied down to a bed. I'm afraid I won't be much help during the actual exorcism, but I'll make sure you don't get killed."
Constantine didn't say a word to me. We passed into the apartment and the girl's worried mother and some other female relatives, perhaps aunts. The mother was clutching a Bible and a long string of rosary beads. She looked up fearfully at Constantine as he walked into the girl's room.
John paused, taking a drag on his cigarette. He blew smoke and glanced at the girl. Then he set his smoke down on the edge of a dresser. I lingered in the doorway. I had a very strong urge not to enter the room. I could sense the demon acting as a finger puppeteer inside the child's body. It was like feeling waves of angry heat from a fire burning with too much fuel in too little space. Constantine was more used to the sensation. His experience taught him to show the demon no fear, that at least half of the battle was psychological.
John calmly moved around the bed. The possessed girl growled fiercely at him, straining her bonds. Constantine, his back to the demon in a bold move, approached the closed curtains. He knew that demons dislike natural light. In one simple move, John tore the curtain down. Light filled the room and the demon hissed painfully, trying to turn away from the window. I winced slightly as my eyes adjusted to the sudden brightness. John tossed the curtain away and rummaged through a pocket of his coat.
Meanwhile, I had mustered up the bravery to enter the room. I hugged the wall and edged my way towards the bed. I had to be ready in case my assignment needed help.
Constantine produced a set of key rings. He shuffled through them for a second, then lifted one up to the lift so that the symbol on it cast a shadow over the struggling girl. John went through three symbols with no reaction. The fourth was vaguely star shaped. I don't know what it meant, but it had the demon hissing and writhing on the bed. My assumption was that this told John what type of demon he was dealing with here. I already knew it would be a solider demon.
Constantine turned and stepped onto the bed. He stood over the girl, then kneeled down so he was straddling her with one knee raised. He leaned in close to the girl's face, her opaque eyes screwed shut, and whispered in her ear. Whatever the demon heard, Satan would hear. My assignment wanted them to know who was going to send this demon back to Hell. "This is Constantine. John Constantine, asshole."
The girl raised her face to look at Constantine. The demon would be a little frightened now. John Constantine's name was very well-known in Hell, with many of its residents having been sent down there by him. The demon spoke to Constantine in Filipino, but from her mouth it sounded like a demonic language. The girl's voice was warped, raspy, and threatening. "Papatayin natin sila!" I mentally translated it into "We'll kill them all!"
"Sure," Constantine said to the demon. Suddenly he grabbed the girl's head and pressed the metal symbol in his hand into her forehead. The demon screamed, the girl's limbs twitching at an unnatural speed. Smoke drifted from where the symbol touched the girl's flesh. Constantine was whispering in Latin. I looked over to the girl's mother who was watching the scene in horror. I bit my lip.
The girl abruptly went silent and still. Dead silent and still. Her feet tonked the metal in the foot board. Constantine finished his Latin phrase and removed the symbol from the girl's forehead. It had left a red burn mark in the shape of the star. Constantine was puzzled. "What the hell?" he wondered quietly. It shouldn't have killed her. The demon should still have plenty of fight left. I knew that it did and I took a step backwards. Constantine shifted his position so he could lean in closer. He tilted his head, perhaps to listen for the girl breathing. The demon, without warning, roared and lunged for Constantine, its jaws trying to snap at him from inside the girl's neck. Constantine's reflexes were quick enough to avoid the demon's snapping teeth. He punched the hell-spawn square in the mouth and it fell back into the unconscious girl.
Constantine dropped the key chain and shook his fist. His heart was pounding, as was mine. Constantine wasn't expecting the demon to do that and was a bit startled. He now knew that there was something very different and very wrong about this exorcism. "I need a mirror," he said. He turned to the fearful people watching the scene from the relative safety of the hall. "Now. At least…" he glanced back at the girl and made a quick estimate. "Three feet high."
For a second, no one did anything. They stood in shock.
"Move!" Constantine shouted. "Go! Now!" The men who were watching leapt into action. They said something to each other and ran out of the apartment.
John got off the bed and moved to a wall. He found a phone cable and pulled it out of its socket. He tugged on the cord, ripping out the fasteners securing it to the wall around the baseboard. Then he grabbed a chair and used it to smash out the window. He took the cord, moved out onto the fire escape, and looped it around a metal bar above his head. I saw him look down and realise that Chas' cab was in the drop zone.
"Chas!" He yelled.
Chas, who had previously been practicing his "this is Kramer. Chas Kramer, ass hole" line, yelled back up. "What?"
"Move the car."
"Why?"
Constantine didn't have time for this. "Move the damn car!" He stepped back inside the room.
There was a squeal of tires and a brief sound of a car engine from outside. "There, car's moved," Chas hollered.
Now Constantine turned to me. "Bastet, help me move the bed." I nodded and did so. We shifted the bed, girl and demon still on it, so that it lined up with the window, the headboard facing away from it. John climbed back up onto the bed, the cord in his hand.
Just then, the group men returned with the mirror. They rushed into the room. "Lift it up over the bed," Constantine told them. They did so, Constantine helping them to position it just right. Hennessy came into the room, looking at John with wide eyes. "Tie that end off," Constantine told one of the men, giving him one end of the cord. "Hennessy, over the top." Father Hennessy took the other end and strung it over the top of the mirror as asked. He stood at the head of the bed holding the remaining cord taught.
The demon was regaining its strength. I took a deep breath to prepare myself for the final battle. Constantine addressed the room. "Close your eyes. And whatever happens, don't look." This warning didn't apply to me. I watched the horrific spectacle as one witnesses a car crash. I just couldn't turn away.
Constantine covered the girl's eyes. The demon growled and snarled as Constantine chanted Latin spells and prayers in a quiet voice. One of the men holding the mirror peeked through his tightly shut eyes and instantly regretted it. His body seemed to age, his dark hair turning grey and white. He backed away and stumbled into the furniture by the wall. His absence caused to mirror to tilt. "No," Constantine grunted, taking his hand off the girl's eyes to hold up the mirror. The demon reached up and grasped Constantine's throat, choking him. Constantine dropped the mirror to grab the girl's wrist, his other hand busy helping to support his body weight. I rushed over and grabbed his shoulder. He shifted his weight off his other hand and used it to recover the girl's eyes. I tried to use my powers to give Constantine the strength he was rapidly running out of. The man in the corner was swatting at his head like it was full of mosquitoes.
He would be scarred for life. I put him out of my mind, focusing on the more pressing issue at hand.
"Show yourself," Constantine grunted as he struggled to keep in control. Eventually the demon's jaws could once again be seen snapping and snarling inside the girl's throat. "Smile pretty, you vain prick," Constantine muttered. He uncovered the girl's eyes and moved aside, allowing her to see her reflection.
My mouth dropped open when I saw what had landed inside the mirror. The possessed girl's reflection was of the demon itself. It climbed over the reflection of Constantine's back and leapt onto the mirror surface. Only a thin barrier was now between the demon and this world. The demon had no brain or eyes, just a nose and a mouth. It was skinny and the colour of rotten beef jerky. The little girl, still possessed, smiled at the demon in the mirror.
John checked over his shoulder to see if his plan had worked. Seeing that it had, he gave the demon the finger. "For your boss."
The demon didn't like that very much. It roared and growled at Constantine.
"Pull it!" John shouted at Hennessy. He tugged on the cord. As a result, the mirror began to move out the window, only to slam against the window frame. It was just about an inch too wide to go out. Shit.
Swearing under his breath, Constantine clambered over the headboard and grabbed the cord off of Hennessy. The demon was slamming its fists into the glass, trying to break through. Constantine braced his feet against the headboard and put all of his weight into pulling on the cord and sending that mirror out. I jumped up and helped him. The cord dug into our hands painfully. John was stretched out horizontally. To my horror, I saw the demon manage to reach one scaly hand through the cracked mirror into our world.
Disaster was avoided as the window frame abruptly gave way. Constantine and I fell onto the floor as the mirror rocketed out of the building. The demon screeched, reaching for the sky for a moment before it plummeted and landed directly onto the hood of Chas' cab. It exploded, sending the demon back down where it belonged and denting the cab's hood.
John and I took a moment on the floor to regain our breath. We heard the little girl gasp and start to cry for her mother in a normal, if not terrified, voice. Hopefully for her all this would result in were some horrible nightmares. The mother ran right through me as I struggled to my feet. I looked over at John. He was exhausted. That exorcism had taken a lot out of him, more so than usual because of his failing health and the sheer strength of that particular demon. He declined my offer to help him to his feet. Instead he grabbed the cigarette he had placed on the dresser earlier. To his disappointment, it had gone out.
He walked out of the bedroom and into the kitchen, already going for a fresh cigarette from a packet he produced from his pocket. I sighed loudly in exhaustion and frustration. John tossed the empty packet aside, leaning against the fridge.
"That exorcism wasn't right, was it?" I said.
John looked at me and shook his head, still too out of it to talk. His eyes spied something on the wall. On a pin-up board surrounded by other children's artwork was a crude black and white drawing of a spearhead on a red background. I instantly recognized it. "Looks like the Spear of Destiny." I remarked casually. Constantine walked over and tore it off the wall. "You think it means something?"
John's dark eyes met mine. "Probably not. But I assume you know that it does?"
I shrugged. "Yeah, but I can't tell you anything about it yet. Got to let you figure it out on your own."
John turned for the exit. "Great," he said sarcastically.
Hennessy caught up with us as we were moving down a hallway back towards the lobby. I moved ahead of John so I wouldn't have Hennessy walking through me. That wouldn't have been fun.
"Like I said, I found you something, didn't I, John? Didn't I?" Hennessy asked, like, "was I right, or was I right." Oh, if only he knew exactly what he had found. He pointed a thumb behind him. "What happened in there?"
We started walking down the wooden stairs. I sensed, rather then saw the half-breed demon known as Balthazar watching Constantine and Hennessy from above, rolling his ever-present coin over his fingers. No doubt Constantine sensed him too, but the last thing John wanted right then was a confrontation with a half-breed so he ignored him.
The three of us walked out through the gate and into the lobby. Constantine noticed Hennessey drinking from a small flask. There definitely wasn't soda in that flask.
"Going to a lot of meetings, I see," Constantine remarked.
"Keeps the voices out so I can sleep," Hennessey explained. We stopped walking. "I have to sleep, John."
Constantine could understand that all too well. "I need some help, Father." He turned to face him.
"You do?" Hennessy look pleased. Everyone likes to be useful. "From me? What kind of - " But then he realised it wasn't the type of help that would be easy to give. We were talking about John Constantine, here. Hennessy noticed John staring at the amulet around his neck, the Celtic symbol for the Holy trinity, and took a step back, clutching it protectively. "Hey, listen, I - "
"That exorcism wasn't right," John said, echoing my own words. He stepped forward, closing the gap between him and Hennessy. "Listen to the ether." He fished his hands around his friend's neck and unclipped the chain. "Anything unusual, you let me know." Hennessy didn't say anything in protest, but his eyes were fearful. "Come on, you don't need its protection. It'll be like back in the day." Back in the day when Constantine and Hennessy were closer and fought demons with ease. Before Hennessy turned into an alcoholic and John started losing friends. Besides, Hennessy couldn't surf the ether with the amulet on. John tucked the amulet into an inside pocket in Hennessy's coat. I chewed on the inside of my lip. He was going to regret doing that later. Hennessy still seemed uncertain. He really didn't want to do what John was asking. "A few days," John reassured him. Only for a few days. That was all it was going to take.
Against his better judgement, Hennessy nodded. "Okay. Okay. For you, John." Hennessy trusted him, maybe too much.
I shook my head slightly as we exited the building. I hadn't said or done anything to stop Constantine from doing that. I knew it would ultimately result in Hennessy's downfall, and as much as I didn't want that to happen, I also knew that it had to happen. In the end, it would be for the best. Hennessy would at last be free of the burden that was his body and the horrors of this world he lived in. Thinking about this made me feel a little bit better.
Chas was trying to punch the dent out of the hood of the cab when we arrived. Slivers and small shards of broken glass from the mirror flew with each hit. It did little to improve the state of the hood. Anput was still in the car, watching in amusement. Chas slammed the hood shut. "John, why would you do that if you know it's not my car?" he asked.
John shrugged and opened the door. "I told you to move it."
Chas leaned against the driver's side roof as John got in. "Right, John. You did tell me to move it, but if you told me it was a three hundred pound mirror you were dropping with a pissed-off demon…" Chas opened the door and got in. I also slipped into the cab. A grin began to form on my face, and by glancing in the rear-view mirror I could see Anput smiling too. "I would have moved it further, John," Chas concluded. He took off his cap and tossed it at Anput. I tried to control my smile.
"Take Alverado," Constantine said.
"Yeah, John, thank you. I know what to take." Chas remarked, still irritated. I let a rogue smirk escape. I glanced at John. He was deadpan, but I thought I saw a fleeting hint of laughter in his eyes. He lit up another cigarette and we drove off.
AN/ Thank you to those who reviewed the first chapter. This chapter is long, I know. It's the longest I've ever done.
Some people reminded me that Constantine may not like having a spirit following him around, and I realise they are right. I've written an arguement about it between Constantine and Bastet in a later chapter, soI have addressed this issue. Thank you for your time.