Constantine the Laughing Magician Presents – Life in the Real World –

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Chapter 22: Pish – Posh and….I Believe you Have the Wrong Magi, Mate…?

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~By near DAMN that bloody title makes as much sense as Satan's exposed tits. An are you listnin' to my story, bloke? Hic! I hit up yer tab, but this part gettin 'arry, so hang on it…. I think I have to rein in the storm drain…. gang way! ( Making it up to sound like he has to purge alcohol from him system while telling anyone at the pub about what transpired as we flash on back. Glad to be back!)

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I never drink and tell, sleep. Maybe, that with a broad and tall damsel looking for some one night stand.

But never.

I groan and move to the left of my cot, the sun is still down and my eyes are bleeding red as I stare into the face of horror personified in myth.

A bite, from the king of –

"MA – Mate, hey! Quit it!"

I lift up my wrist to show the gothie my little side-stepping magic. I'm not going home to Chas to tell him that I have a nine pm feeding under a full moon. He's a zombie, what does he care about devouring brains in this day and age? Knowledge and his books serve him just fine, but I'm not a crook of lives. Not really as I turn the bratty vamp down. He shrugs and instead has me to rise by his power, licking those awful fangs as I gawk by his determination to either get me in his quarters or to steal the show by some illusion only, I can cast.

"I won't kill what is already dead, Sir John." Chuckled the vamp lord. "Come, I want to tell you all I know about what really started the wars of our land. Beginning with the creatures that were forced to find a new home."

"Alright, but no –

"Nipping is forbidden of my guests as well." The count bowed to the loyal magi. "You have my word that you and your comrades might not be turned."

"Might?"

"If…we can have that, it will be done that no harm shall before either." He clarified, settling my gut a bit as it rolled over with me from this downy, spring - less hell I'd been chasing for the last half hour. I was dead on my feet; plain tired, dreadfully.

"Another night on the cot and you had me at "come on."

"Very good." Grinned the count. It could be a torture method, but yet John doesn't think the count isn't so hospitable. Not when his prey is everywhere to only he. "Lead the way, highness."

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Zee wasn't where she needed to be right now. She had a job to see to the dragon's shelters and stronghold to see if Dracula was a fibber on all accounts. "I bet there is more to the story."

Liz was back at the castle, her eyes peeled on a way into the lowest levels of the keep. Her ears heard noises and she stuck to the walls, became wallpaper to fool the crowd of blood sucking folkloric creatures. John was busy just getting to fool the count, while she had multiple underlings to keep at bay as well. Hopefully, Zee had her powers long enough to start up an escape plan B should she get caught. Same as Liz saving John from the fangs of doom he'd walked right into. "Be careful, Johnny. That count has a taste for something bitter in mind…" Off she went behind a lone corridor only to see cloaked figures in a row all headed to the same place below the castle's foundation.

Inside the wall… under the stone floors.

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John was led to a library of such ancient creation that he did want to stay here and he did want to scour the place for what Dracula dared not answer. His subtle distractions had John staying a few feet of distance to cast a spell, should the count try to use his gift on the magi against his will. Speaking of…

"Question, sire. But, you put a spell on my body, not my mind like your victims in the story –

"It is just an invisible thread to drag you along at my side."

John's stomach dropped at the explanation. "I won't run away, undo it if you please then."

"How can I be sure you won't use a book or a curse to turn me to ash, Constantine?"

"I'm not here to fight."

"Then no demands need be altered." Sniffed the count as he lifted a book from one pile in the room, splaying out the pages in his hands as he began to read from its pages.

"Long ago, lived gods, monsters and spirit with the humans that kept such creatures alive through their dreams and each beings' life force. The power of the gods was vast, and so they created in comfort the very first monster to be wed to a mortal – bound by the sacred fires and into them –

"This world, so it permits sexes to flourish and mingle?"

"Yes." Hissed the count, not liking that he was being interrupted. "May I?"

"Sure, sorry."

"The gods looked and saw that the numbers however of the spirits had dwindled, and so while drunken on a wine so rich it could defy ones' logic, the god of plenty laughed and said with a voice unclear, "the spirits are too weak to defy what we have accomplished by our want for a new species of being. Send them far away, see to it that no one may touch a hair and never allow these spirits to wander unattended. They will have the power to change face, to return as mortals in their guises but not as they shall be should ever, they walk the earth and desire to come home to where they are no longer welcome. If these creatures should indeed try to break the sacred oath, keep them chained and do not let the make more of what they already are. A mistake." And so, the god of plenty told the god of defiance to swing his whip and to torment only those of the spirits that decided to come back, under law they became servants and fed the monsters, while the gods watched and only wished to undo what they had done."

"You…..you are the humans, then the monsters –

"Were the dragons."

"So, the damned humans and monsters….no wait, you were both so what does that tell us at all? That a hybrid being ticked off your gods, I take it?"

"Yet the gods were idiots with too much drink and not enough discipline." Dracula shut the book with a clap, John still asking the count just why he'd been told to follow at all. "The war is over humans, but is it? Are you saying the spirits started it by taking on the form of one of you and tricking the other party? Why wasn't this said at –

"NAY, the answer is there in your hands." Dracula told the magi. "The child you saw, the boy in my chambers is a half - fae. His blood is magic and we were told that any fae were to be put in chains as a result of the oath –

"That's still not going to solve this silly argument! They have minds, and even if you were told by gods to do it, did you see one yourself?"

"In death, long ago. A reaper led me away. I took it, and…here I am."

"Bullocks, that much'll do." Sniffed the magi, disagreeing with the noble vamp.

"Vampir were once of monster and human blood, but the fae are cowards and SEEK their own destruction, Constantine! The dragons hoard a thing to kill, not to preserve for gen –

"Then you…. you're making new…. you damn well are trying to create an army of followers with illegal creatures – I am not on any one's end to help slaughter and starve out an entire race of daemon –

"They, no longer exist in this world."

"That they do, take a look in the mirror sometime…. Lord Dragul." John brought up his hand to cast a spell, undoing the count's curse if he got himself lucky enough to bolt his way on through.

"You'll find the demon starin' back, plenty…"

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