The crystal ball glowed with a rainbow's worth of colors. Some were brighter than others, though they would fade away to be replaced by a couple of the others. Reds became blues became yellows and everything in between. Madame Xanadu held her hands on either side of the orb, her eyes glazed over as she appeared to be staring into it. She had been at this for awhile.
"So this…fortune telling stuff," June Moone whispered lowly. "Does this really work?"
Zatanna was standing next to a bookcase, one that was normally draped with a thin cloth that helped give the parlor that foreign, mystical look. It was currently undraped as the two women had been searching it for books that might help them in their case. Currently, June was standing next to her, the two watching Xanadu at work.
"It's not an exact science," the dark-haired woman admitted with a shrug. "Sometimes what you see isn't what you were seeking. Doesn't make it any less true, it just means you fitted a round peg into a square hole."
"Example?"
She wanted an example? Zatanna's blue eyes rolled upward as she gazed at the ceiling. Oh, she had one. "I was given a reading once that I would see someone I cared about—and was dead. I thought it was this one guy I had known for awhile, but it turned out it was my dad."
"Ah." There was a moment of silence. "Did this magic stuff resurrect him or something…?"
"Not exactly. There's a lot of backstory there. Suffice to say, some bad guys were trying to resurrect my dad, but instead got a demon. I had to put down this twisted version of my dad since it looked just like him. I don't really recommend having to do that."
June slowly nodded. "Sorry, this is all just so new to me. I'm used to just looking into old books that talk about this stuff as if it were normal, ya know? You get used to reading about these fanciful tales that in no way could have happened, but then you see that stuff happening left and right and…"
And yeah, suddenly Harry Potter was a very real, very dangerous thing. She had been there and done that. Zatanna shrugged her shoulders again as June trailed off. "Don't beat yourself over it. Not a lot of people experience this kind of stuff ever. You can't hold it against yourself for not understanding any of it, especially since you were just dropped right into the middle of it."
"Hardly seems fair, does it?"
"Life isn't fair; why should this be?"
As blunt as that was, Zatanna did feel for June. She didn't have to imagine what she was going through; hell, she had gone through it herself a few short years ago. She had been just as wide-eyed as she was. Unlike her though, she could at least give June a guiding hand through all the craziness that seemed to go hand-in-hand with magic.
That was something she kinda-sorta didn't really get.
Her blue eyes shifted over to Xanadu. Yeah, there was her helping hand, and her version of that was dropping her off the deep end. Sink-or-swim and thankfully she had swam.
After meeting with Anita and the old woman taking off to figure out what the internet was—seriously, how could she not have known about the internet?—Zatanna returned to the fortune telling parlor to update Xanadu on what was going on. She had to wait until Xanadu took a break from her scrying, because of course she did.
It shouldn't have surprised her that Xanadu knew of Detective Chimp. "He's a fair detective," Xanadu had remarked. Did all of these magic people know one another? It seemed she was still learning who everyone was and everyone else just treated each other like old friends.
She was the proverbial party crasher and she had crashed a party full of old people that were constantly scoffing at her.
Suddenly, Xanadu lowered her hands from where they hung on either side of the crystal ball. Her eyes sharpened, losing that glazed look they previously had. "Something approaches," she declared in a warning tone.
"What is approach—" Zatanna managed to get out.
And wouldn't you know it, the front of the fortune telling parlor was suddenly ripped out from the rest of the building. The glass windows cracked before they shattered in a split-second. The brick-and-mortar that made up that front wall came apart in large chunks before they seemed to vanish into a thick, dark smoke. The ceiling lights burst apart, sending cascades of sparks to the floor. And all of this was accompanied with a thunderous roar.
Zatanna instinctively flinched from the loud blast, her hands shooting up to cover her ears. She managed to keep her eyes cracked as she stared through the open doorway between the main parlor and what was left of the waiting room, seeing only the cloud of smoke advancing forward into the door's threshold. June was frightfully whimpering as she crouched on the floor, her arms covering her head.
Xanadu stood up. She held a hand out towards the doorway, her eyes glowing with light so bright you couldn't see her irises.
Her timing couldn't have been better. Something seemed to erupt out of the smoke, only to hit a barrier of light that blocked the doorway. The barrier flashed with a green light from the collision. Just as sudden as it appeared, it vanished, bounced back into the smoke cloud. However, it left this ear-piercing wail, one that echoed throughout the room.
Zatanna winced from the scream, but kept her eyes on the barrier Xanadu had erected. A few moments later and the shield was hit again, causing it to flash as…whatever that thing was shrieked. Rapid-fire, it slammed into the barrier over and over, almost as if it were testing it.
"What's going on?" June cried out as she peered around the magician. "What is that thing doing?"
"It seeks entry," Xanadu declared. "I can feel it testing my defense. Zatanna: go deal with it."
"Deal with it?" the dark-haired woman repeated. "The hell you say. You're doing just fine keeping that thing out, whatever it is."
"It will not stay this way for long. It will try to overpower my spell eventually and I will need to use my power to protect the girl. You can alleviate this by running it off."
Oh sure, bring logic into this. Zatanna rolled her eyes. "Fine, but if I find out you just wanted me to do your dirty work, I will turn you into a newt."
"Not in my territory, you won't."
That gave her pause for a moment. The fortune telling parlor was where Xanadu was at her strongest. Whatever was attacking it would be at a disadvantage entering here, just like those Bat Worshipers from way back when. So why was she sticking her neck out again?
The whimpering from June instantly reminded her why. June had no powers, so Xanadu would be more invested in protecting her. For once, the fortune teller was thinking of others, and naturally it came at Zatanna's expense. Worse still, she couldn't argue against it. Damn it, she should have left her father's grimoire back at Shadowcrest when she had the chance.
"Tropelet edistuo," she declared and a burst of smoke erupted before her eyes. When it began to disappear, she was standing outside of the shop, a large dark smoke cloud gathered in front of the parlor. It actually partially-covered the two storefronts next to it, slowly spreading outward. The cloud flowed into the street as well, but didn't go much further.
That wasn't all that changed for her. No longer was she in a T-shirt and jeans. Instead, Zatanna was dressed in her costume, complete with fishnet stockings and her father's top hat on her head. Yeah, she had her work clothes on, cause it was time to get to work.
"Laever flesruoy," Zatanna commanded as she waved a hand towards the smoke cloud. A powerful wind blew in, coming in from the same direction that she had moved her arm. Immediately, the smoke cloud began to move to one side, though it seemed to be resisting it.
Then came the shriek.
Something erupted out of the smoke, coming in hot towards Zatanna. It was moving so fast, it was practically a blur. Eyes widening, the magician cursed before she dove to one side, the blur racing by. In its wake, it left the very distinctive smell of rotten eggs.
Oh, and the feeling of something latching onto one of her ankles.
Suddenly, Zatanna was yanked through the air, the dark-haired woman crying out. She felt herself be swung around from left to right and back before she was launched through the air, flying head first. Shouting out another teleportation spell, the rushing scene around her immediately changed. She ended up on her feet, but found herself stumbling as she tried to regain her balance, the sudden change in location and body position throwing her off.
Shaking her head, the magician finally recovered her balance and found herself standing on top of a roof. The edge of the roof was a few steps away, which she covered, stepping towards the ledge. She found the sight of the street down below, the smoke-hidden fortune telling parlor on the opposite side.
Suddenly, a figure shot right up in front of her, causing Zatanna to instinctively jerk back. Time seemed to stop as she caught sight of this gangly creature, a torn up gown covering their body. Two bone-thin arms were held out from its body, one leg dangling benath it, the other raised up, bent at the knee. The face was something right out of a nightmare, sharp teeth bared beneath beady eyes. An ear-piercing scream rang out from its mouth. It looked just like the thing that had tried to attack her at the museum.
Aww, crap, the hag had found them at last.
Summoning her magical energies into one hand, Zatanna thrust it forward and unleashed a magical blast point blank. A purple blast erupted from her palm, consuming the hag in an instant. The scream the hag had been making was abruptly cut off—her ears thanked her for that.
The moment she stopped the spell, she saw something go falling to the ground below, leaving a trail of smoke in its wake. Zatanna watched from her perch, seeing the hag crash down on the asphalt of the street with a sickening splat.
Splat? Zatanna focused her sights on the body below. That landing sounded way too wet, not when she should have heard some sort of breaking sound. She knew that because she had seen a lot of things fall through the air, and without a corresponding pool of blood splattering out, no way should the hag have made a splat sound.
That's when she felt it. There was a spark of magic happening right behind her. Of course, that had to be a teleportation spell. Spinning around, Zatanna was just in time to see a spot on the roof bubbling upward. The bubble rose higher and higher, becoming this column with a round head. Its head began to tilt towards her before it suddenly burst apart, a swarm of tentacles whipping out as they rushed towards the dark-haired woman.
Oh hell no!
Jerking back a step, she held both of her hands up and channeled her power. "Derhs ot seceip!"
The tentacles immediately began to peel apart, starting at their tips and going down their long shafts. For a moment, it looked as if they had multiplied before they ripped apart. Bloody chunks collapsed to the roof, making wet splatting sounds.
See, now that made sense. That's where a splat sound belonged.
However, it seemed she had made a poor choice in spells. Even though the rush of tentacles had been torn apart, their bloody chunks not only collapsed onto the roof, but their momentum ended up pelting her as well. "Ewwww," she groaned as meaty chunks stuck to her.
Suddenly, more tentacles erupted out of the bloody mess she had made. Before she could react, they rammed right into her, pushing her backwards. Zatanna couldn't help but take a step back and then another. It was that second step that she found went over the edge of the roof and she was suddenly falling backwards off of the building.
Eyes wide, Zatanna felt the rush of wind against her back. Thankfully, none of the tentacles had wrapped around her, so she wasn't getting tied up in midair. Still, gravity did suck right now and she didn't feel like making her own splatting sound at the moment.
"Dnuorg nrut tfos!" she shouted, directing her power beneath her moments before she actually hit the pavement. Instead of hitting very hard concrete and asphalt, what she did land on felt like what was best described as a bouncy castle. She actually sank into the ground before being bounced up into the air, only to land back on it. Up and down she went a couple more times before she settled down.
Well, she hadn't expected that to be the result of her spell, but hey, results were what mattered. In this case, she wasn't dead. That was enough of a win for her.
That's when she noticed a green light in the corner of her eye. Turning her head, she saw a torrent of green fire racing towards her, filling up the entire street. Eyes widening, Zatanna rolled onto her side, crossing her arms in front of her face to protect them.
That and to hastily erect a shielding spell.
The green flames washed over her. You know that sound when a welder ignites a welding torch? Yeah, she heard that, only at deafening levels, the fire rushing all around her. She cried out, but the only reason she knew this was because she felt her mouth open, but she couldn't even hear herself scream. Faint blue light formed a dome around her, but it was hard to detect the light because of the green flames. The heat was incredible, unbearable, and suffocating. It seemed to last for an eternity.
And then it stopped. Gasping, Zatanna just laid on her side, barely able to notice how the asphalt around her looked melted. Probably because it had been melted and the force of the fire had pushed it down the street. The only part that wasn't was the piece of road she was laying on.
"My, my, you managed to survive my Fires of Wrath," a cackling voice called out. "You're the first to ever make that claim."
Trying to find the voice, Zatanna soon spotted the hag. She was standing perhaps a block away, small green flames licking at her fingers and hands. Her horrible face was…amused? She was going with amused because of the tone of her voice. It was hard to tell what expression was on that inhuman face right now.
With a groan, Zatanna began to push herself onto her hands and knees. "Yeah, well, I'm just full of surprises," she responded. "Care to see another? I have it right in my hat."
"Not particularly. You see, I'm getting quite hungry and your soul is just the thing to fill me up." The hag licked her gross lips to further display this hunger of hers.
"Oh, I insist." Zatanna reached a hand up to her top hat and took it off. The showwoman in her made her show the inside of the hat to the hag, proving there was nothing in it. Keeping one hand on the brim, she reached her other hand inside of the hat, sinking her arm up to the elbow into it. "I hope you haven't had a bath today."
"I only bathe in the warm blood of whores," the hag snarled.
"Well, perhaps I can convince you to try a different kind of bath!"
Yanking her arm out, Zatanna pulled out a bath stopper as well, a sharp popping sound being made. It really wasn't necessary—again, the showwoman in her was making an appearance. It was the only clue that would have tipped off the hag to what was coming.
Which was a powerful blast of water erupted out of her hat. Zatanna barely grabbed onto the brim of her hand with her other hand, bath stopper dangling from her fingers, the force of the geyser damn near yanking the hat out of her grasp. The rush of water closed in on the hag, ramming into her, causing her to shriek as she was thrown backwards down the street.
Then as sudden as it appeared, the water stopped. Holding her stance for a moment, Zatanna then straightened out her posture and turned the hat rightside up, using one hand to tap on the top of it to remove any last drops of water that were trying to drip out of it.
All the while, she continued to hear the hag scream. Placing her hat back on, and then tossing the bath stopper away, she sauntered over to the hag, finding her lying on her back on the road, smoke rising from her body. She thrashed around as she screamed in pain.
"So how was that?" Zatanna inquired as she came to a stop, resting her hands on her hips. "I didn't have the gallons of whore blood you like to use, so I felt water was a better substitute. In fact, I went the extra mile for you and got holy water."
"You bitch!" the hag shrieked, still jerking around. "I'll rip out your liver and feed it to the vultures! I'll bath in the blood of your insides! I will suffocate you with your intestines for what you've done to me!"
"Hey now, don't make me bring back the holy water. I can do that again, you know."
The hag seethed where she laid, steam wafting from her body. She never stopped wiggling around too. "You will suffer a thousand deaths," she finally uttered.
"And that sounds like someone wants another bath." Zatanna plucked her hat off the top of her head again, aiming its underside at the creature. "I'll try to include some bubbles just for your enjoyment."
The hag shrieked again, but her mouth stayed open for an entirely different reason. A long, pink tongue fired out of her mouth, much like a frog trying to stick a fly. In this case, the fly was Zatanna's arm, the end of the tongue wrapping around it. Before she could utter her spell, or even respond appropriately to the wet, slimy tongue, her arm was yanked forward and she found herself being lifted off of the ground. With a toss of her head, the hag sent her flying through the air, the dark-haired woman striking the ground soon after.
Even worse, she lost her grip on her hat.
"Ow," the dark-haired woman groaned. Now that, she hadn't expected. Slowly, she began to push herself up, only to stop when she realized the long tongue was still wrapped around her arm.
Suddenly, she was yanked again. Her eyes caught a brief sight of the hag standing on her feet, who knows when she did that. She was whipping her head however, and this was causing Zatanna to go flying through the air until she crashed into a light pole. Her left side exploded with pain as she felt like one of her ribs cracked. Then she was jerked back the other way, though she didn't really rise high into the air. Instead, she went skipping across the rough ground until she hit some sort of crack, or raised piece of broken asphalt. Whatever it was, she rose up into the air before she crashed back onto it.
Then she forced up into the air. Rising higher and higher, she eventually began to arc before falling back to the ground again, landing on it hard. Zatanna gasped as the air was forced out of her lungs, pain wracking her body.
"I should warn you, I like my meat well-tenderized," she heard the hag crow. How she managed to speak around her tongue, there was no telling, and the magician wasn't about to try to physically figure it out either. She was kinda busy getting dragged and slammed against stuff, ya know.
That's when she felt herself be pulled across the ground, slowly at first. Her arm was leading the way because, of course, that gross tongue was still attached to it. Raising her head up, Zatanna saw the hag reeling her tongue back into her mouth, though she wasn't really doing anything physical to indicate this. Her tongue was simply sliding back in with her at the very end. It didn't take a genius to realize what was going to happen when Zatanna reached that mouth.
Suddenly, a large, orange circle came whirling in. For a brief moment, Zatanna caught sight of it, a glowing circle with symbols of runes contained within it. The circle was spinning, the aura surrounding it giving off the impression it was a blur of saw blades. Perhaps that was what it was as the magical circle flew in from one side and cut into the tongue, severing it into two pieces.
The hag shrieked as the rest of her tongue, bloody stump and all, shot right into her mouth. The part that was still around Zatanna's arm wiggled and twitched, as if trying to find its way back to its home, but doing so blindly. On the bright side, it began to loosen its grip on her arm and she quickly shoved it off.
"Seems I got her just in time," a very welcomed voice announced. Turning her head, Zatanna spotted Constantine strolling through the street. One hand glowing with the same circle spell as the one that had cut off the hag's tongue, though it was much smaller, about the size of his palm. The other one had easily been the size of a small car, just for reference.
"How dare you interfere!" the hag screamed as she turned her murderous, beady eyes onto the blond man. "I will—"
"Hush," Constantine said, raising his free hand up and holding his index finger in front of his lips. That finger glowed a faint purple color before he pointed it right at the hag. In response, the hag's mouth slammed shut, a steel plate glowing the same purple as Constantine's finger covering it an instant later. It looked as if the plate was bolted on too, leaving the hag stunned where she stood.
Then her eyes narrowed, rage glowing from them. A muffle cry came from her covered mouth as she held her hands up, gnarled fingers forming deformed talons. That was when a magical blast fired from her hands, one large enough to fill the entire street.
Constantine didn't look the least bit perturbed by this. By this point, he had managed to move in front of Zatanna, ensuring she wouldn't be swallowed up by the blast, at least not first. Raising up the hand that still glowed with that magical sigil, it grew in a matter of seconds until it was as large as the blond man was tall. He held it between himself and the approaching beam, clearly using it as a shield.
Then the blast struck the sigil. Even from where she laid, Zatanna could feel the force behind the attack as it collided with Constantine's spell. The entire area felt like it jumped. However, the glowing circle held firm, not even so much as cracking from the power behind the magical blast. While Constantine seemed to skid across the ground a couple inches initially, he did come to a stop.
That's when he moved his other hand behind himself, keeping it at shoulder's height. Blue fire erupted from his palm, rising high into the air.
Oh great, did everyone know a fire spell? First, Xanadu with her regular, orange flames, then the hag with her menacing green flames, and now this British guy with his weird blue ones. Was fire the in-thing now?
Did Zatanna need to make a purple flame spell or something?
Constantine, oblivious to the magician's inner turmoil, just lobbed his blue fireball, throwing high into the air and over both his shield and the magical blast pushing against it. A few seconds later and the beam faded away.
This gave Zatanna the view of the hag stumbling around on her feet. She had both of her hands clutching at her face, no doubt where that fireball had struck her—at least, that's what the dark-haired woman hoped had happened. The hag was dancing around, hopefully in pain.
Suddenly, the hag ripped that glowing steel plate from her face, a loud scream echoing throughout the area. She faced the two magic-users, showing her murderous face, one that was now marred with burn marks on the left side of her face. Yep, looked like Constantine had hit her directly. "You will pay for the torment you've caused me," she seethed.
"You and every ex I've had," Constantine quipped. "As you can see, I haven't paid those bills yet, and I rather think it'll be the same with you."
Heh, that was actually a good comeback. Zatanna was gonna have to remember that one.
The hag appeared to stew on this. Then she snarled and shrieked before she threw her hands above her head. For a moment, Zatanna thought some new, devastating spell was about to be unleashed, but then a column of green fire erupted all around the hag. It rose and rose into the air before the flames died out, the hag no longer in sight.
Immediately, the dark-haired woman reached out with her senses, trying to locate the hag's magical presence. Much to her concern, she couldn't sense her anywhere. Ugh, don't tell her she could mask herself, or something of that nature. That would be too much.
Constantine just grunted. "Looks like the hag pissed right off. Not exactly what I intended, but it'll do, I suppose."
…you had to be kidding her. That was some flashy teleportation spell? Seriously?
Shrugging his shoulders as he rolled his head from side to side, Constantine then turned to face her, taking the few steps to close the distance between them. He held a hand out to her, crouching slightly when he reached her. "Need a hand?" he offered.
"Don't mind if I do," she grunted back as she raised a hand up and accepted his. Like a gentleman, he helped her up onto her feet. She couldn't help but grimace from the throbbing in her ribs she felt. "So, you think she ran off?" she couldn't help but ask.
"I don't sense her nearby, even with that nasty perfume she's wearing all over." Constantine pulled his hand back, reaching into a pocket in his jacket to remove a box of cigarettes. He held the carton out to her, to which she held a hand up to refuse. Shrugging, he tapped one out, and put it to his lips. Placing the cigarette box back into his pocket, he then held his other hand up, snapping his fingers next to the end of the cigarette. There was an immediate spark, one that lit up the cigarette, which he promptly took a drag of.
Okay, that was smooth, she had to admit.
Removing the cigarette from his lips, he blew out a cloud of smoke. "Looks like you were having some fun," he observed as he stared at the area.
"Yeah, the hag decided to attack us here," Zatanna said. "I'm not sure how she found out about this place."
"Couldn't be too hard. If she discovered that grimoire was with Xanadu, she could track her down. She has quite the magical presence in this city."
"How would she have found out about it though?"
"Beats me."
Yeah, that was really informative. "Then how did you get here?" she couldn't help but question.
"I found her stinkin' trail and followed it here. Good thing too, since she was reeling you in."
"I would have gotten out of it," the dark-haired woman huffed.
"I'm sure you would."
Zatanna was getting ready to further advocate for herself, you know, since it was the principle of the matter, but something caught her eye at that point. That something, as it turned out, was a car, one that pulled onto the street they were on a few blocks down, and headed this way. It only slowed down when it reached the two of them.
Both front doors opened then, Detective Chimp climbing out of the passenger side while that goth girl assistant of his poked her head out of the driver's. "Did we come at a bad time?" the chimpanzee asked.
Oh sure, now everyone was showing up. Where were they when all the bad stuff was going on?
