Magi and Djinn World Tour! Student of the Dark Arts –
/
Chapter 4: Exchanging Glances
/
"The man who ran that school, did you know him? John?"
John took a slow drag as they walked, the butt getting kicked into a waste bin once it was given a good boot kicking. "I'd say we got along famous, even if I had known the bloke. You wanted to know a part of yourself; it's a start. At night, I expect you to study hard."
"I will!" Raku bobbed his head. "It's my future. I promised myself that. The guardians, they'd have to accept me if I can become a sorcerer on this plane in order to keep my vows to Aiden's family."
"And yours." John added. "Minding that you learn to stop weeping over a little fuss between Chas and I. We're mates, always have been."
/
Raku took his shoes off as the house smelled ever so strange upon entering the apartment. John stopped Raku, yet he wasn't that far in the door before a whirling light pierced the wall. Raku hopped back, grabbing his boots before the shot could be fired again. "Where is he??" John sneered at the serpentine worm on two legs as it hissed back. ~ Your payment was overdue again, Constantine…~ The demon, they'd assumed by its height abd lack of actual clothing to cover its crotch, was that. A primitive deity, John's eyes said.
A death God.
/
The demonic looking soldier sniffed over the room, worked up by a difference in their auras and odors. ~ Child, you are not of this time. What is your –
"He's with me, if you want this settled, you'll take me to have your payment issued, mate. The boy, my roommate, they're staying put."
~ The payment was a portion of life which you refuse to grant, yet the boy is a beacon. Ah, yes…~
The demonic looking servant hissed as Raku felt the miasma clinging to his clothing. It felt dirty, and expected of him to allow it.
"He's a student. Nothing more. Nothing special about a young –
~ My senses do not lie to me, Conssstantine! ~ Hissed the beast as its tail found Raku's cheek, coaxing up his chin as the boy didn't move. "Raku! Have…. have patience. The boy knows nothing about this!" John was fighting it, yet Raku could feel a terror in him that brought flashes of fear. Of another child once lost. He was weeping, tearing up.
Raku…. he was, just a student now. But he could help. He had promised. "I won't go. He's right." Raku took in a breath before releasing fire from his lips. The magic flames could not harm the walls here, yet the thing let go as he started to find his center and fell back into John. "Lad…are you ok?"
"I'm not one to die earlier than expected." Nervously chuckled the teen. "Then, I'm going to help you this time." Raku watched as John started to chant in the language of a deity he'd heard as a child.
Of Sumerian and Babylon and the lands of his forefathers. His eyes watered as John's language and his heart connected. The creature was sent to another void as John locked him away, digging out sage in a drawer and lighting it quickly. "Grab a bundle."
Raku nodded and gingerly took the one he needed to burn, cleaning and clearing the air until he could feel a strong aroma of a forest to the California desert.
"Only batch I had on hold. Chas!" John snapped his fingers and opened up the bedroom door as the groggy zombie shook his fist at the blonde idiot magi. "He cane in ere' and said you owed him a blood sacrifice! What was that thing, Johnny??"
"An old associate that took my offer too far. I never said it would be a human."
Raku's eye witched. "That was…. irresponsible!!" He shouted, the men seeing the boy understand why the team was so - so about him staying with John. "You wouldn't have let go, but it's no better than an assassin coming to collect….i was the sacrifice then-
"Raku, understand that my jobs can –
"No, I'm with the boy on this, Johnny. Justify yourself or he's going back to the states…"
/
~ I put the lad in more danger, I always do this…~
John drank out that evening as Raku waited for the next incense stick to burn out by his bedside couch space. John would be coming home. He wouldn't just pull out of this rule of the damsel in distress at his arm. Raku was, just startled. He could tell John by tomorrow that this was all new. That going back meant losing his teacher, failing himself ….
John. He was an anti-hero that traveled and worked WITH demons, but Raku no longer was…
Chas walked into the room and saw Raku letting his arm over the couch slump down. Listless, he waited and watched the door from his eye to see when or how another visitor might come.
It was very sad, in all. Chas had to say, something.
"I may have a deck of cards stashed in my drawer to the back room…Know any games, Raku?"
/
John's mess, so he'd clear himself. Change himself. The underbelly stunk of trash and rotten flesh; this underbelly wasn't a mortal zone, anyone that came in never left.
John stuck his hands into his coat pockets and mosied on over to back away from any grimy liars and thieves of human souls. A succubus flashed him on the wall across, and children were being torn up in a tug of war by two imp toddlers on four legs - like dogs.
John didn't even bat a lash as he kept walking. His goal was a door where someone needed a kick in the arse, badly.
"A break in and entering on my first night actually getting along with someone. You've had your time to think about it, bloke." John pushed back the door to an old wine cellar. "I'd like MY justice. There was no need to invite your bloody self in. Who gave you that power, a genie?"
It was insulting, yet Raku needed this. He was nervous, that kid. Abused before this. John would show them. He'd let Astra die, he'd let Chas's wife and daughter live a life free of him, and John had come back. He'd let the past come through. The Cadaver curse had a loophole for Chas to recall enough, as long as he was bound as a supposed helper to the warlock. He was at his beck and call, so that he'd never drift off.
Cobwebs hung in full sight of a dirty window as the diseased spot reeked of a demonic haunting. "New, was the floor cleared when you got it…or, did you layer the bodies to burn AFTER you stole the deed to this wine shop."
(Oc coming up.)
"Atticus Grey." John sniffed.
The steps above creaked one by one as a stranger to some, didn't stay in the dark. "John, you know I'm only looking after what was mine. The daemon was right. You needed to give your one hundred percent decree. Who by the way, was that boy with you." The man had long wavy grey hair in a black cloak with sunken eyes. His skin was of leather as John remembered that macabre loving mad man.
He knew a con, yet this was a man he tended to keep his mind away from. "You summoned it, I did tell it that a batch of live sacred cattle was satisfactory to its meat. Human meat, wasn't on the menu."
The grey-haired seer chuckled, a cackle in his musings as he stepped down a few steps too extra. John's heart was beating as he let his hands stay in his pockets.
"We can be civil, magi. My magic is withering. This was but a plea from one of your own kind."
"You gave up your soul as one of them to become immortal." John cleared the air, the male up the steps at a sigh as he seemed to dismiss the accusations. "Your old teacher and I, we had some disagreements. But…yet, you took on a new student. Words travel in a wizard's community. Yet you never told those poor souls, that a demi – God's offspring was whom ye were tasked to admit as your pupil, Constantine!"
/
So, John went to the source of the summons. Bet you never realized who the Sumerian character before was summoned BY. Raku was right. So, will. John play nice or get messy? Find out!