Magi and Djinn World Tour – Student of the Dark Arts
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Chapter 17:Bloody Misunderstandings
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A massacre. There was no mistaking the red on the dirty king's armor. Red with the blood of those it had used to stay on this plane. Now, if it held such power, would he not be able to seek out –
John paled, as Jen threw up her fist in an outrage. "You're that bloke. Atticus, the clown who thinks e' can live forever? John, I t –
"You thought wrong."
The blonde magic felt his strength wither yet it did rise, fearing for what this other beast with long red hair wanted from his very mission.
Why it knew –
To come, here. Wasn't it really here?
John stopped. If it was true, he had to guard his mind. This being was hypnotic to lead him to think, but thoughts were only just that. Ladders to a destination he would rather never speak. Atticus by far had to be guilty of demon worship through the race of his fractured immortal self to replace what the council had banned him from taking back.
He, John had handed them the man. He no longer looked up to the mad sorcerer with a desire to live for any other lifetime.
So, yes. This was a demon, not a vamp.
"As we were. Atticus?" The proper shine if this careful disaster dropped its meal to stand beside Grey. His kerchief was given a spot of blood as the thing cleaned up too well. As if dying screams weren't here in this part of the tower. A tower that could only exist to trap them all inside.
It spoke as human as John never wanted to hear. Jen was stuffed down in her rages as her blue eyes look back at John's on what to do. The lad wasn't here, he'd gone to school. Jen's copy was in the H-
John stopped. The longer it took to get out, the more would leak past their wall of secrecy.
"I give to you, John Constantine, the esteemed and fabled Lord Vlatmir Lothos the very only. My, associate who has given his very word to restore what the council allowed of the post that they had promised. You may not know this, yet Adam –
"He was a Celestine Messenger." John swallowed. "You drank him dry, one of you did."
Lothks raised a gloved finger as he spoke with a voice that nearly purred. Jen had to shiver at that soft, silk its wide eyes and those –
John fell back a step ad the thing smiled, then spoke without any enchantments. "Do you not know what that cur had intended to do, to my young Lord? The one you have hidden from me. Yet, we are very close, he and I."
Stiffening up, Jen noticed and pulled John's sleeve with a toss of her head. "We're leaving. John?"
"Why so early? The first quarter is Nigh, Constantine."
That voice. It was very bad, very. He knew. They ha-
The door vanished before a giant cloud of fog. The screaming and bleeding images of the past seemed to revive themselves.
"He cannot stay, that child is a killer! I taught him what he still knows. What he still craves. Control, and one day? He will shove you inside of that book, Johnathan."
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Raku raised his eyes as bloodshot as a writer's to the blackboard. Zee was putting her erasers together as the children all looked around and snickered during a free period. Amber frowned at her phone, finding that this was starting to bore her.
Michael stepped up to the step where Raku was ill as could well be his body perspiring coolly under his uniform and robes of a young sorcerer in training.
Michael sniffed and put his weight on one palm to SLAM down and wake the lad.
Raku jolted up, seeing with two amber orbs that Michael was no better than Borgges.
"You are no prefect in my eyes, infid-
Raku didn't have a chance as his eyes turned a color redder, Amber tapping the boy to rise as sge raised her hand. "We'd like to visit the washroom?"
"Be back no sooner than ten minutes. You have fourth minutes if study period remaining."
Zee watched as Raku was out of the room, yet no faster had they left that Michael came up to her. His eyes pried fir questions as she went to erase one lesson for another.
"Why the special treatment? He's not one of us."
"None of , you are all from different areas of the world, and worlds. He's just overcoming something that made his difference seem harder to cope with. You don't always have to win a fight because of who had you –
"Are you accusing my family of nepotism, Professor?"
Zee shook her head. "No! I mean, you don't see the real him. All you see is, well…the parts you may not like. It's better to understand-
"He's a bleeding half demon in my eyes. I know. That aura is conflicted by what's not occurred and the council will hear that you've also sided with that…" Michael huffed. "He could harm us all. I'm not wrong."
"Do you believe in the theory of a past life, Michael?" Zee sat back at her desk and tapped a finger there, waiting for the silver haired half - fae to speak up.
"What does that have to prove about our misfit imposter? His syndrome of pity is infecting the entire staff of this academy. My father –
"Has pity, somewhere." Here, she coaxed him to stay with a faint smile.
"Trust me, Michael." Zee looked the boy in the eye as he stood a punch away from her striking brown pupils. "He will know, but you won't have been the one to tell him about how you started fights on school grounds during an emergency evacuation."
The shot bolted Michael to the floor.
"What would he say to you then? You need, to stay in your seat until homeroom is over." Onto her feet, she went back to making up more lessons on the chalk board, using her spells as she spoke them so hushed to morph into a face of something strange. A character, one might play at to teach others a lesson in sincerity.
A face the boy saw, as a jester. "We all wear masks," She proclaimed to him from over her shoulder, "yet yours are very different from his."
Michael sneered and tossed his eyes to the side, giving her a last moment sniff as the brat walked on over to his seat. She relaxed her shoulders, yet not before catching something from the corner of her eye, as Raku reentered the classroom a few moments later.
His face, positively ashen.
Michael was speaking to a group of boys in the back of the hall just a few minutes before the bell for lunch. She had her eyes locked on them as John's mention never reached her homeroom. When it had finally ended, she swept herself off to find out why other faux teachers were both stuck and in utter defeat over this trial.
Raku was going to be harassed by those boys. It was obvious that they'd try to gang up on him, yet Raku…
He was, weary. As if his lack of sleep was severe to….the point….of….
She gasped and reached for her phone to contact Chas.
Madness.
Ignito. She had to warn Raku before he let those children have a slap in the face. A scar to each boy, for Ignito was not kind to bullies. None, and by far, the djinn familiar called Kuro was much less easy to control; it's role was imp like, impotent frustration and tantrums that would have been Raku, had he become a god all far too early.
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John was trapped as the clock swung side ways, this way. This space was inside the tower. No, inside…the clock?
"Illuminate me." John huffed while pulling up his sleeves and trying to remain in control. "Lothos was a bully in my kid's time. He good off an' dumped your shine arse into –
"He did not. She, however, tried. The firebird never allowed for my true form to come about. Atticus, I suppose is one to thank for that."
"You speak like someone close to our time line." Jen pointed out. "Where is that outta? Magic? Did you evolve from a previous, failed revival? We really have no time fir his games, mate."
John's body went solid as Lothos's eyes popped right out in a pleased, gleeful trance. "Mate…you use this to describe, friends, to lovers? Correct?"
"What else could it –
"HUSH. No more answering riddles. She's correct. Yeah. Then it's-
"Mate…as in….bound below the alpha dog??" Lothos roared out as his whole body morphed twice a quick as any other demon so far's. It was a red, large wolf with fangs as white as shark teeth. Eyes as red as fire in the hearth and if all the excuses he could set- horns. Fir a dog that let saliva drop from it's jaws.
"Now look, she's tempted the beast." Atticus turned as he turned to a way up. A step, while Lothos in that form, pounced at Jen directly with a feral growl.
"Fuck! It's-
"Not coming close!" John shoved his arm in as the wards in them as old brands had the jaws piss off. Falling back to all fours, the beast circled, shaking its muzzle as the laughter of another voice in red, arose.
"He'snot a wolf, then?? What gives??"
"I don't have to exhaust my weary back over you, children of my swarn enemies. Such a waste, and when there us so little time to prepare for the reunion w –
"HE DOES NOT CARE." John shot out through clenched teeth. "That is a boy that saw your true face, yet I'm bound to see that sadism isn't your only crime? Righting yourself to fancy the young, he told us? You think I'd allow you to have another go??" John's power envelopes him as he was about to shoot such arrows, until a book, one part that must not be the original, was shown to the magi. "John! Wait!"
"You see this, you do." Lothos cackled coldly. "A collection of recorded pages from a book that was discarded. Our book, the very one that changed Raku in HIM."
The forbidden myth had pages of those stories. Arc after arc as to how Raku became a monster and how his monster – hood birthed many children. Chosen, power sources.
Lothos had the one like some sick high school stalker of Raku's time as a student and pet to….this.
John didn't know if he'd been this angry since Astra. Since Chas's daughter was nearly taken by that same slime from the netherworld.
That Raku was the same. Only he, he coukd become that monster again if something egged him against his only wishes. Djinn had no options, and he was half of this. Raku still had not decided on his partial godhood or his humanity to save him. He wasn't so great with petting go, and Lothos knew. He recorded possibly every tear dripping or ever prayer uttered in a mess of –
John shouted, shoving away the telepathic image from what Lothos was trying to test him with.
"He's…a rapist bastard….John? Does this mean he can get lost or, or what is he doing with those memories…Raku, Raku's just a kid –
"Under that guise, he is a killer. As I made him to be fir purposes designed by our late strip queen. Had they not reaped me bare of my time, there would have been some chemistry. However, it was quite a sight to see that child stand up to his, father –
"Azag –
"Made Raku, Johnathan." The demon vampire's teeth shone, head tilting as he snapped his fingers. "Roku, was all because I pushed the boy to be king. And, he listened."
The wolf ruffled and John deflected it, the clock works turning as Jen used her powers to keep them from ended up spiraling onto their skulls, upside down.
"You think you know his true nature, yet he is a Red Lord. The very SECOND made. We take care of our own, and as I told you. He must, come home, soon."
"He has to defeat you. Then we will find a way, you're a cult fanatic, Lothos!"
"I started the boy's career as a daemon lord!" Laughed the monster. Atticus just went up higher, the box they were in grew smaller, the illusion trying to have them on their knees for these cowards. "How do you plan to leave? Atticus can, yet you're bound to this grave, I noticed why you called us to it."
"Time is, lacking, yes." Mused the demon. "It is an ugly mistress. Fir I have seen how she throws her crown about. Did you know? Roku tried very much to overthrow Time's child. She gave him so many chances. A wife to change him fir the better, a son in whom he indoctrinated to his causes and abused, similar to what I did to awaken his true fate, Constantine. That story in my hands, will work. It can bring back the one that you cannot save. You cannot touch."
"You….won't ever –
"John….roof, closing….what's next?" Jen pushed up as the walls had them holding on. Lothos looked un- bothered by this, almost –
It was. "Run, forwards, head down. This is a separate cage." Hissed John. She shot a bolt as the walls opened a a tetrahedron design, the shock almost alive while the pushed. One foot out and Lothos backed up.
"You understand, good. Then if you are done clawing your way to me, go and see. That boy is not well…my own kin watch over him from the classroom, and they would be happy to reactivate that power of woe for all to bare witness."
John wondered if it wasn't Michael, then stopped. "Amber. She's always at his arm, always sticking to the lad in class?? You sent a demon to coax him from his promises?? That all?"
Jen kicked John out of the shifting box as they both fell from it, the box reverting to a cube. "A bit of alchemy." Jen kicked the thing, yet the door behind them opened. "Go on, Constantine. Find the child. Coax him to stop all of this. If he can…"
The gust of red wind pushed John and Jen out of the tower, the door vanishing while John dusted himself off and dashed to the nearest cab. "Fucking –
"John! I can get there, just –
"No, we have to get to the school before –
The tilt was a time warp. A feeling that consumed him, though his banded wards upon those arms caught Jen staring back. Frozen.
Time magic. Something wasn't going to last. He ran, black and white sepia worlds and no one moving. Holidays upcoming, Raku was supposed to visit a market, make a pudding without eggs. Was that too much to bear that he'd become attached for the lad?? He was-
~ A killer, not real.~
Only je wasn't a child. He wasn't a boy, not all if himself. He was a demi – god. A time lord's child, tainted by the touch of monsters that knew how he ticked. That claimed they were the best in all the seven bloody seas. Jen was frozen, Raku must be responsible for the freeze. He must, he wasn't-
Into the classroom, down the hall, he ran. Doors swung back, the message clear.
John was waking to a horrific sight as Amber held Michael, Raku's hand up and what engery he saw, was red. Fire, not gold. No book. Ignito wasn't the one,Raku….
Raku had struck first, and now….Michael was very hurt. Amber was acting coy, scared, the room started to wind back as the time spell wore off. John saw him from the restroom stall. Two brats were one to the ceiling, pinned there as a swallowtail, and the other was stuck in the loo. Head sticking out wkth his mouth sewn shut. Only demon's did this, as John took in a breath. Raku was crying, chest heaving as he shook. "Y – y – you t- t – tested….m – m – me…" The boy's hand never lowered. No wand to prevent it from doing more damage.
John rushed over, Raku in shock as the field between them had no effect. There was a contract and sadly, he had to use it to get the boy to listen. He chanted Sumerian song as it stemmed together, Raku letting his hand down as his eyes fluttered shut.
"Come on, that's it. Home, you need to just, come home. It's ok."
Raku fell back into John' arms as he drew a symbol over the front of the kid's throat. A golden collared band emerged as John scooped up the boy- djinn. "Let's get a look at what he's done, lad. I'm so sorry…"
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