Chapter Six
"That's just disgusting."
"Well, it helps the atmosphere where the spells are concerned."
It didn't matter how many times she saw John covered in blood, it was still disgusting. Whether it be just his hands or his entire body, he looked like a victim from a slash thriller movie. The first time she'd come to the Mill, Chas had pulled a shotgun on her. John had warned him she'd be coming. He just wanted to make sure it was HER.
What if the blood got in his mouth? Eh.
Just as John had predicted, she'd shown up. The petty dabbler had been practicing some chant and covered in blood from head to toe. To him it was just every day life.
"Better him than us."
"Have you ever tried?" Zed questioned.
Chas shrugged. "Spells and rituals are John's fortay, not mine." He went into the kitchen and pulled out a mop bucket and filled it with hot water before pouring a generous amount of Spic & Span.
"What are you doing?"
"He's going to come back in here with his hands covered in blood. He's probably going to leave a trail behind him, too."
Zed rolled her eyes. Whether Chas intended to make John clean up the mess or not, she didn't know. Being as how she had yet to see John Constantine scrub a floor...
Chas cooked, he cleaned, taxied, he died, he lived and he knew how to wash clothes. Apparently he knew how to sow, too. No wonder John often called him their own little home maker.
She shook her head at the lazy Brit outside and shut the door to her bedroom. She wanted a long, hot soak in the tub. Five minutes later she had just that. Epsom salts, bubbles and a hot bath.
Twisting her hair up high at the back of her neck, she sank into the waiting oasis, the suds rising to her shoulders. She tilted her head back and closed her eyes.
Yes, she could do this. She wasn't alone. She had two men that were fighting for her. John knew her. He knew that no matter how scared she was, she wouldn't go willingly with her father and his recruits.
She'd proven that the first time.
John Constantine always had a plan.
Her eyes slid closed as she settled deeper in the water.
The lights flickered and then a bright light exploded, just without the sound. She jerked up, water sloshing over the edge. She brought her hands up and pressed her fingers against her eyelids. "Ah, what'd you do now, John!" She cursed beneath her breath, blinking to get the circles out of her eyes.
She stepped out, water tripping to the floor and reached out for the towel hanging off the wall rack. She wrapped the towel around her body and beneath her arms. The last time something similiar to that had happened, John had done the spell wrong and broke every window in the Mill.
She blinked to clear her vision as she crossed the room and then pulled open the bedroom door. The lights flickered again. "Please tell me he didn't just break every window again."
Chas barely spared her a glance. He was already pushing back from the table where he'd been in the process of fitting John's missing button back to his pants. "No, but he might have just blown a fuse." He didn't look too happy about that. Replacing a breaker box was expensive. A fuse, he could deal with.
The front door on the upper floor opened and they heard footsteps.
"Dammit, John, what the hell did you do?" Chas called up the flight of stairs, the annoyance in his voice clear.
"Mr. John Constantine is indisposed of at the moment, I'm afraid."
Zed froze and saw the muscles in Chas's back tense. He didn't turn to her, just reached out and picked up John's trench coat and tossed it her way. She caught it and forced her arms into the long sleeves without arguement, belting it around her waist.
"Where's John?" Chas demanded.
Oh God, no.
Chas shifted and she knew he was placing his body between the stairs and her.
Her nightmare turned reality came into view and his eyes met hers. He smiled. "Hello, Mary."
"Hello, father." Her tone lacked any emtion. The way she spoke, the term 'father' meant anything but the endearment. She was already looking for a way out, just like she'd always done in the past. This wasn't supposed to be happened. Not yet. Not yet. Too soon.
"Maybe we can burn his cigarettes and he'll stop."
"Well, if you stopped smoking..." She'd said those words in the car. She could see the simularities.
The button. John had tossed the thing to Chas.
Bits and pieces were coming together in her mind.
She looked up, so did Chaz. There was a small flash of light following the popping sound. "What was that?"
The lights. The bright flash in the bathroom.
Her stomach bottomed out. John. Where was he? What had they done to him?
Her father started down the staircase, one hand on the banister. He was the same as he'd been in her childhood, just older. He looked refined, almost peaceful. He knew what he'd wanted and he'd come to collect. "It's time to come home, Mary."
"I'm not going back." Zed said, shaking her head. Her eyes were glued to the stairs.
Four men came into sight and followed him.
"The forces of retribuation are always listening. Punishment is swift if they do not repent. There's so much sin, Mary. You were chosen by the Divine to give birth to the Messiah. Feel honored." God, she'd heard his words before and he still believed them. He sounded just as crazy. "You have a big part to play here, Mary. Come home."
"You're crazy."
Chas turned his head. "Move."
Zed shifted to the left and the door at the end of the corridor came into sight.
"Go in there."
"I'll get lost." She'd only explored one room behind that door.
"So will they." Chas turned his attention back towards the stairs. "Hasn't anyone ever told you it's rude not to knock?"
"Chas-" Zed whispered.
"Actually, yes." He lifted his hand and rapped his knuckles against the wall. "How about that? Now..."
No, no, no. Zed grabbed Chas' arm but he reached out and opened the door. The hallway was long. God, so long. So many doors. It shouldn't be possible, but it was. "I'll get lost, Chas." She whispered again. "I'm not leaving you-"
"They'll get lost, too." He muttered again, cutting her off. "You forget, if they get ahold of you, we're all screwed." He shoved her into the corridor, one hand still on the door. "If they kill me, I'll come back, remember?"
Would he? He didn't understand.
"John isn't dead, Zed." Chas whispered.
Her throat worked. "How do you know?"
"Cause he's not in that mirror."
"How about we see just how many lives you have left?"
Those words brought her back to the horror that was standing just on the other side. She'd never actually seen Chas die before. He just always died...when she was around and she heard the tales from Constantine. Where was Constantine? What the hell had they done to him? Her heart stopped when she looked over Chas' shoulder.
Her father smiled and lifted his hand.
The explosion rang in her ears and Chas's body jerked, slamming backwards from the impact. He hit the door and it nearly slammed shut, but her fingers in the door stopped it.
"CHAS!" She felt bile rise up as she struggled to push the door open past the weight of his shoulder. She shoved hard and then his body rolled to the side. She sank to her knees, one of her hands rising to her mouth. Blood pooled from the hole between his eyes...
He was dead. Chas was dead.
"One."
She felt sick and a vague sense of deja'vu. She looked up. "You call this retribution? This isn't holy. This is murder."
"Retribution comes in many forms, Mary. Have you forgotten that? The sinners must be punished."
Still kneeling beside Chas' lifeless body, she completely forgot all about his "lives to spare". He'd just died at her feet. He'd just been brutally murdered. Still kneeling, she watched with sharp eyes, moving over her father and then men gathering at his back, two tracking to either side.
Chas groaned then and her father didn't miss a beat. He lowered the gun and pulled the trigger. Chas' body jerked against the outside of her right thigh and she heard the sickening sound of the bullet ripping through his chest and impedding in the wooden floor.
"Two."
Shock filtered through her and for a split second, she'd thought he was alive. He'd come back. He and John hadn't lied. And then that fragment of hope splintered.
Zed thought she knew death. She'd once heard John say she wasn't ready for it. Death was a cruel, grueling experience and most people had absolutely no idea. Her hand shook when she touched his shoulder.
"I'm not going back." Zed spat. "Go find another Mary to fulfil your prophecy."
"It's YOU, Mary."
She could handle the man on the right, and the one on the left probably, too. She wasn't sure if she could take on all four, though. Much less her father.
She felt Chas' chest move beneath her hand and then he gave another groan. "Hell." He muttered before pushing himself up. He moved swiftly, knowing what was going to happen. He may not have understood her vision before, but he understood it now. He was going to die. Over and over. Probably until he didn't come back.
He pressed a hand against her chest and shoved her back so that she fell on her ass right in the entrance of the Corridor. "Go. Now. We're fucked if they get what they want, Zed." The Messiah wasn't what anyone needed.
"Three."
Zed could feel a scream forming in her throat at the deafening sound that followed, but her airway locked when Chas' body contorted before crashing to the floor. She reached out and slammed the door shut and took off running down the long Corridor.
She heard the doorknob twist and looked over her shoulder. One of the men saw her running and lifting his arms, taking aim.
He was going to shoot her.
The familiar sound of a gun discharging reached her ears and she stumbled to a halt, expecting to feel the burning pain. She didn't. She turned halfway and watched as the man in black stood stock still, his face lacking expression.
He crumbled to the floor in a lifeless heap, the back of his head all blood, brains and pieces of skull.
Her father loomed over him, lowering his still smoking revolver. "I need her alive. Uninjured." He said in warning to the other three men moving around him.
Zed turned the corner and ran as if the very hounds of hell were on her heels.
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