Magi and Djinn World Tour- Student of the Dark Arts-
/
Chapter 31: Crossfade
And yes, I mean the band. So underrated.
/
John pulled out an unused pair of headphones he'd never thought he could use. Not in a few years or ten thousand.
His sound. Chas didn't stop with the chords as the sound ruminated as the name implied.
Mucus Membrane.
Blonde, cool, held on the arm of each damsel that walked backstage, they were about to get everything they'd ever asked for. Well, the price had been being a dropout from a class act as a magi. A real one; his mentor was behind bars and so too was John's trust in any magical societies, he'd rather piss them off the way they had simply been done with the court order. No juvy could save him, not a demon cult.
Well….
Could it?
Couldn't it not, nit with his own talented partner in the Nevada really being a Crowley from the walking dead.
Dead walking in, as he lit a butt of his to celebrate from over John's shoulder. By his arm over that was his young daughter. Astra, a young girl with only the curious eyes of a child brought to her father's workplace by permission granted.
"Is the tyke alright-
"She'll be even better come tonight, Johnny. How's the vocals? My front runner up will be on that platform. We have everything we can even want - soon, you and I." Crowley puffed out his sokes with a grin as wide…as wide as…
Red…
Red hair?
And that wasn't Astra at the stake as she was dragged off.
~ Stop it!! No!! Not –
YOU COULD HAVE AVOIDED THIS, MAGI. GIVE HIM UP. OR I WILL TAKE WHAT IS MINE BY RITE…~
Lothos emerged from this skin of Crowley as John's back was to the mirror, arms pulling him into it as the might set in, and he woke up in a cold daze of sweat and fear.
/
"N….no…" John stumbled for the door as Raku was alive, up and with Asarte in her human guise, rubbing his damned back. "What …what did you-
"I have blocked his power." She let her hand slip away as Chas sighed and refilled Raku's mug. He wasn't even looking at John. Zee had been gone for ages with Jenny. Jen was here, waiting to get Raku to settle in earlier than he'd wanted.
" You could've never done a thing. Never…no one could have determined it, the council." Astarte spoke, " That school was poison the moment he entered it, and you…didn't know a thing. Nor did we. I think it best fir us all to send the boy to his true home." Raku dropped the cup as he went to his knees, shaking back his head as he clung to Astarte's leg.
"This…this is my fault! It's my past. John just…please!" He begged. "I'll be expelled and lose my rite to become –
"A guardian in our world is a far more noble task. They may even assign you to Aiden's family, later." She told the boy, or John if he were listening.
"Don't do this…not again…you made me feel as if I could never escape this form…not as I am, but I can try –
"He's cursed your allies. He'll kill your family off and do what was intended of his kind from the very beginning for revenge, nephew." Chided the goddess of wartime.
"AH, Family of yours, lad?" Chas asked.
"Abi and Azag…" Raku let go and nodded, tears already forcing to crack down into the boy's pajama top.
Sighing, Astarte didn't have a clock to search over in the room that was visible to her. "Ignito must be cleansed. Only for a time. The boy –
Chas heard a buzz as they all stopped talking. A cell was on and Astarte's catlike senses didn't care for the warning call at all.
"Pick it up. Go on." She told John as he found it to be his own phone. "I never use these. Too many security measures." Clearing his throat, John wasn't finding. It wasn't his, but Chas's extra in case he had to try to work on losing connections with a burner.
"E'llo?"
~ This then from what I hear, is the number of Johnathan, is it not?~
John froze, putting the speaker on. "Look who's talking, mate. Is this not against an act of civilian privacy that you're breaking?"
~ Forgive me. I just spoke with the head of records at your charge's school…this is, a peculiar statement. The council wants to alone let you well know that Raku must attend die to the effect this has on the community of magic. ~
"He's not going to be attending. Afraid he's been here too long. Health complications-
~ I see. Well, according to what you know about our academy firsthand, one cannot end the school year In-between. The crisis I can tell is brief yet the headmasters want this boy to attend until the end of the school year, just before autumn…it's expected of students. Unless, you have written condiment from somewhere else? ~
"I may, actually. You'll speak to all of us or none at all; I'd love to expose a catastrophe or two of my own while where on the topic of expulsion without a fair trial."
~ Adam would have wanted this to end quietly –
"Adam is already dead." Snarled John. " An intruder on your grounds killed him off. I know that there are others, which is why Raku's life is more imp-
" John." Raku swallowed, hobbling almost weakly over to the man. "Let me speak –
"Not a chance, lad. This is a tr-
"It's urgent. I'm the adult, and you have to listen…"
"He doesn't, actually." Sara crossed her arms and spoke. "Raku, your life right now will not be determined in the classroom. Not that one, you need one on one training where you can be safe, and heal."
"Heal?? John is hurt-
" You were almost marked, like before." Her eyes furrowed at a pain John had seen in others towards the kid. As he had. It was fear and love.
"I promised Azag you'd be safe. He knew you could become more, but this is a danger I cannot stand beside you to easily fend off. As with Lilu, I cannot… John has no understanding of it, and was almost lost."
"Sir, we'll be there." Raku called over to the speaker. "Please give my regards to the headmaster." John gripped the phone as it clicked off. John had no time to bat the boy's hand away, afraid to be like those others that had abused the kid and pushed back.
"RAKU." Sara came to grip his arm and as she looked him in the eyes angrily. "You will doom yourself and this world, again!" She shouted to his face. I'm fighting to save you, to give you hope…you can't end things as before."
"Azag, he fought his enemies and his fears."
"He lost to them, child! And no one can lead the pain so deep…you have to steel it away. Leave, with me. Be safe…"
Raku rasped, his lip quaking as he tugged her away from his grip. The bruise was already gone. "SO? Why are you here now?? To stop me, or Lothos??"
"I…"
Raku turned to John . Astarte could not answer right away.
"You wanted me to trust you. But, I'm not a child. I need to find it. The body I lost could be my way towards stopping him. Why can't you see that??"
"Because, if you grow up too soon with all of that contempt, you may as well fully turn this time." She snapped. "And never come back to us." Astarte's voice cracked as she told him, and Raku had to lower his eyes. "I can't get away then?? He just gets to…who will stop that creature, then?? I'm supposed to cage them all? Like Azag did? Die in doing so?? He had… aged, why can't I??"
"Maturity is earned by a god, in your case." Said the disguised goddess. "It is because your humanity is at war with it. Ignito is to balance it, yet it will try its best to speed along that growth if you are not careful. You were told this before."
"I was able to grow up. Ignito is proof of that." Raku rebuked.
"He and Lilu had you break that code and doomed your life by giving what you wanted deep in your heart, only to corrupt that. Or had you forgotten?" Sara reminded the blinded child.
"Ignito is there to grant you the rites when it is time. You however, have to have complete control over your abilities, or it will try to recreate what you are on its own. It is impatient as you, as well more human on this plane every day as you have been all along. This is why you must come back. Clear yourself. Get well..."
"Humans are as messy as the gods, highness." John snorted. "He just found that out from the wrong sort of demon."
/
Astarte roughly pulled John into the next room of Chas's apartment to pin him to the wall. His robe fell open as his boxers and tank top didn't bother the roaring queen at all. She'd seen Deathstroke in his birthday suit when their fling wasn't yet up. "Listen well, Constantine. That boy was only here to gain a privilege of becoming a guardian to another mortal bound, and it is MY duty to maintain the balance he has upon waking to his new life as a demi – God…while you have shown that you are easily lead astray…. so too will he lose his next life if I dare give in to this fight!"
She roared at him as her eyes resembled a big cat's slits.
~ I am a god of war because I was not born to be, nor was he until Azag broke out if his realm to woo a mortal witch of Solomon. Raku knows not why Power sources exist, so I shall tell you. Gods are chosen and born. Chosen, and God Born, do you understand??~
"I….DO, LOV…" John choked out as he gripped his neck to breathe better.
"Go…on…"
"Raku by blood was not the first power source. He was in fact many of the third, which is why that unity of birth, death, and rebirth did exist for he. It is the same as others. Lilu knew of this as she may have been a candidate to become a Chosen like Horus - yet her power was corrupted through her vain nature as a forgotten goddess in her youth. Just as you know not, Lothos is no, damned demon, alone. He was once mortal - bound and a child of a warlock to a soul stealing legion that was unknown at the time. The thing to corrupt him, was the very blood lust of flesh and power beyond his sights combined. Do you understand, magi?? He too was nearly the same. They attract. Power sources attract fallen candidates of the Chosen, that could not be as they, even if they were destined to be. Richard Ainsley the second and third, the boy. His mother, Queen Lorelai – Alicia Damian and her sibling , Cecelia Crescendo; who is in Hades due to her birthright alone by Hecate's side. He was predetermined BY the gods upon birth, yet before this, it was the same of Tammuz. A god that was said to have allowed mortals to carry the gift of a power - sourced realm within. Raku is an ephemeral force and you cannot be tempted to take it ca-
"HE…IS…A…person…" John squirmed under her wrist as she let his drooling mouth go. "You do not understand, magi. Lothos knows how to bind souls like his own to him. Like Lilu, he forgot the gifts taken from he, thus? To contract with a djinn - half that also is as gifted as the gods, what do you think would happen? He might be able to use that boy's power yet never be tainted by its light. Lothos will do as any mortal, and if those council folk are acting on his behalf, you will tell me."
"Jury's out, ok…" John coughed and caught his breath as quickly as he could. "A classmate has a father on the council and he's pulling strings for an exiled teacher they allowed back in on good behavior. Atticus Gray. Search him, find you link." Sniffed the coughing magi.
She nodded and turned to go. "Raku will attend with me. I will be sure that there is no damage done to my nephew. He sees me as a figure of great authority barely, yet I made a promise to her…to A's very eyes.
"A is, your boss?"
"No." Astarte chuckled weakly. "She is, the keeper of the Ethereal. She had, aided Raku in seeing his fullest humanity again, to grow from it with Aiden and the Graysons... She is also, family to Azag and to time, itself." Smirked the now eye- winking goddess. A twinkle of hope buried deep within. "Have I answered just about as much as you were hoping for, Constantine?"
/
So, Astrte is on their side….right?? But what about John's dream? Find out!