2014.02.27 - The Hellblazer and The Daytripper

It's early morning. Wee hours early. There's a crack of sunlight in the eastern sky, but not much more than a ruddy sliver over the harbor, making it largely hidden behind the tall buildings that tower above the theatre district. Yellow caution tape flutters in the cold morning breeze, surrounding a crime scene in an alley behind one of the local theaters. It's not behind the Majestic, at least. That's a good thing. But, that doesn't stop the sorceress known as Daytripper from investigating.

She hovers above the scene, an illusion wrapped around her to make her largely invisible. What she's looking at, though, isn't the left over bits the cops have left behind, but, rather, a magical imprint that is even now in danger of fading in the dawn's light when the sun rises in earnest.

The flash of magic that caused it woke her up. That's why she's here. She felt it. And it felt... Bad. Really bad. So, the sorceress is here, now, searching for clues... carefully.

The only way John Constantine is up this early is if he's up this late. He is. Most nights. He's closed two bars and an afterhours place so far. It's getting blue out. That first sliver of sunlight baleful in the Hellblazers eyes, but right now he's not hunting for drink. He's had enough of that. Enough, actually, to silence his common sense and perk up his awareness. Walking the streets, he feels something isn't quite right. In fact, really not right. He follows that sense, let it grow larger within him like a knot of tension in his stomach ratcheting up a notch every block he draws closer.

He makes his way to one of the city's numerous forgotten alleys. Some have nicknames like "Crime Alley" and others are jokingly referred to as "Diagon Alley" but this one? It's just an alley. A deadend where someone ended up dead, and it wasn't a natural death. Magical deaths leave a certain feeling of unease and stench all their own.

John fishes out a Silk Cut and lights it. Letting the smoke fill his lungs and steel him, he exhales through his nose slowly and lets the smoke dangle from the corner of his mouth. He shakes his head a little "Ya poor sunnava bitch," he mutters, British accent thick. "Let's see what you were tryin' to do, and where you fucked it up.". He makes his way into the heart of the alleyway, approaching the imprint that's still there.

Daytripper glances to the brit that enters the alley, placing his accent as he speaks softly right down to the region of origin. She's spent a lot of time in the UK, herself. And it's never quite left her own voice, either. She's wary, at first, until she senses that hint of magic about him, too. A soft word and her illusion ripples away. She remains hovering, however. "Whatever it was," she comments idly, watching the stranger's reactions closely, "it wasn't created by the victim."

Constantine squats down. He dabs a finger on the ground, and sticks it in his mouth, tasting. "Goddam." he says with a grimace. The voice doesn't surprise him. He doesn't even start. He simply looks over his shoulder, "No," he says, "It wasn't. Whatever poor bastard meandered his way in here caught something in progress, and it ate him."

He stands up and examines the area. "Looks like a summoning went wrong. Whoever did this didn't have a clue in hell what they were doing. Probably got their hands on an old ritual or book and thought they were gonna be all heavy metal about it." he says, looking the hovering woman up and down. "John Constantine. Who the hell are you?"

"Amanda Sefton," the woman replies, floating down to the Earth once more. "Sometimes called Daytripper." Is it any wonder she offers her real name first? She glances to the ritual trappings that have been churned underfoot by the authorities earlier. "The real question is whether or not the thing being summoned is still loose, or not." Because, if it is, she knows, things are going to get messy. A beat. "And whether or not it's still feeding on the caster's intention." Which might also complicate matters.

Constantine nods, "Oh it's still loose." he says, with no small amount of certainty. "And when we find it, we'll find who summoned it." he spins around and goes to where the ritual took place. "I obvious can't guess the incantation, but from the glyphs used and summoning compenents there," he says, pointing to a pestle and mortal full of what looks like used motor oil, "and there," he points to a clump of vegetation bound together with a leather thong, "It looks like it was an unbound cacaodemon from the a plane called Nyx. When they get brought here, they can't be sustained unless they bind to a biological organism. In this case, it was the summoner. Poor bastard's being manifested right now." he says, taking a long drag from his cigarette and looking back to Amanda.

"Nyx, hm?" Amanda doesn't sound at all surprised by that. But, then, in the basement of her theatre there's a portal to a myriad of different dimensions and realities. She snirks softly. "Boy doesn't do things by halves, does he?" She glances down at the vegetation and thong particularly, the motor oil being less useful to her. "Let's just see what he may be up to, hmm?"

She stoops, then, and picks up the cluster of weeds wrapped in leather lacing and lays it on the palm of her hand. Then, she pulls a few odd components from the satchel on her hip, adding them to the mix. A breath of a word or two later, and a faint purple light appears before her. "We don't have much time," she tells the hellblazer, now. "When the sun is up in earnest, the trail will disappear."

Constantine looks and sighs, "Of course it will, love." he says, taking a last drag and flicking it aside. He withdraws a flash from his inner pocket and hits it, offering it to the woman, "I don't suppose we could pick it back up when the sun goes back down, eh?"

Amanda barks a short laugh. "It'll probably be easier, at that point, just to look for the next shit disturbance. Cacodemons aren't known for their subtlety." And she's attuned to this city. She knows the flow of magic through its streets and through its people. The purple mite starts moving. "C'mon. Let's see how far we can get." With that, she starts off after the light at a loose trot.

Constantine moves to follow Amanda, shaking his head, "Great, all this and there's running too. Looks like I picked a helluva a day to quit.." he pauses "Eh, Fuck it. I ain't quitting anything today."

The mite leads them along the street, the sorceress ignoring looks from the early morning passersby and the drunks still stumbling home from the night before. The trail is erratic, crossing the street at odd places and moving through other alleys. Eventually, however, it leads into a parking garage some blocks away and the mite zips around in tiny circles, as if searching. Amanda's steps slow and she pauses a moment to evaluate.

Constantine has managed to keep up for better or worse. He also moves with Daytripper like he's anticipating her moves, which he is, if she's following a different version of what he is - the route is following one of the leylines in the area. "Are we close?" he asks, a little breathlessly.

"This is it," Amanda says, glancing to the puffing man. Cigs do kill the whole running thing, don't they? She's avoided that problem, herself. "At least, this is where the trail ends." She whispers another spell and her eyes glow with an inner light, allowing her to see the ley lines and other traces of magic more clearly. "Well, alrighty then..." she mutters softly. "Shall we go see if it's hiding?" This close to dawn? It may be.

Constantine takes a deep breath. "More or less. I didn't bring anything for this sort of thing though, so whatever I do it's going to be ugly and it's going to hurt." he states plainly.

Amanda flexes her shoulders. "Duly noted," she says, the smile that touches her lips humourless, but expectant. "Let's do this." She crouches down and peers into the structure through one of the open air gaps near the base. Seeing a likey spot in there, she whispers a spell and, beside her, a portal appears. "In we go," she tells the hellblazer, right before she steps through the portal and into the heart of the parking structure.

Constantine follows suit, "We few, we happy few, we band of buggered..." and steps likewise into the structure behind Amanda. He's reaching into his trench coat, likely to get some sort of magic components ready.

There's a scraping sound in the darkness, as Daytripper steps through the portal. Her fists glow faintly, charged with magic. She spins in a slow circle, looking towards the direction of that scraping sound. There's a growl and a ripple of what would seem like heat haze to others -- but is entirely demonic magic. With a roar, the demon charges the pair. Amanda's hands come up, and her first shot is a magic bolt that cuts off as she forms a shield to keep from being overrun.

Constantine faces the demon and drops to a knee, he takes a pocket knife out and cuts his finger deep. Wincing, he lets the blood flow onto the concrete and uses his finger as a stylus. Making arcane symbols on the ground as he starts muttering words in latin and a couple of other languages that aren't known on this plane. He's working something, but it's not going to be instant like Daytripper's shield. He wasn't lying when he said it was going to be ugly, and painful, and he hasn't gotten to either part yet.

The demon bounces off the shield, shaking its head at the unexpected impact. The bolt went wide, and now there's a car alarm shrieking. But how often do car alarms really attract attention, any more? Amanda spares Constantine a quick glance to see just what he's doing. She recognizes the symbols, though perhaps not the configuration. Nevertheless, her attention returns to that demon because it's big, it's angry, and it's charging again. Another shield lights up. This one causes the thing to slide toward a more open area that's easier to fight in and she presses her advantage, then, firing bold after bolt of eldritch energy to keep it on the defensive while Constantine casts.

Constantine finishes the glyphs, and rises, continuing the incantation. He raises the hand he was using to make the glyphs, and steps out of the protection of the shield that Amanda's put up. He braces himself the same someone who is about to inevitably get run over by a bus might. He holds the hand out and shouts the last word of the spell, and three "shots" for lack of a better, come off the hand. They don't look like an energy discharge, or ammunition. It looks like ripples in water, or heat waves rising off desert-baked asphalt. The Hellblazer opens his eyes after the ripples issue off him, and he drops to one knee, trying to see what happens to the demon.

The demon staggers under the blows Daytripper flings at it. As Constantine's force ripples out across the concrete toward the demon, the force spreads to crash over the demon like a wave. As it does, the woman drops to the ground and focusses another shield, creating a concave lens before the creature which reflects the excess power back at the demon in an narrow focus.

The creature screams. Its body writhes and it very much appears, for several long moments, like its physical form is being yanked off the body of a young, human man like dough being pulled apart in the center.

John rushes in, between the Demon and the young man. He begins to speak a binding incantation, hands moving in symbols and seals to not only bind the demon from acting on this plane, but sending it back to its own. It takes several seconds, but it's effective. The demon is pushed back through a rip between planes, screaming and howling in agony the whole while. He turns back to the young man, sweating, panting, and pale. "Asshole." he mutters, and gets out a cigarette, lighting it.

Daytripper drops the shield and walks to towards the two men. John is shakey... but the other fellow has collapsed straight to his knees and is still in obvious pain, himself. The sorceress, however, isn't quite of a mind to be gentle. But, neither is she naturally cruel. She puts a shield around him, not that she really expects him to go very far. "So..." she drawls slowly, as the grey twilight of impending dawn slants through the open air gap in the far wall. "You certainly caused your fair share of trouble, this morning."

Constantine shakes his head, "Yeh, what the in the blue bloody fuck were you thinking? Watch the Evil Dead or something and think 'Hey - I can do that!" he says, rolling his and smoking.

"I--" The man looks up between the pair. There are tears in his eyes, which are solely because of the pain of rending the demon from him. A scowl settles on his face. "I don't need to answer to you," he sneers. It doesn't come off quite as cocky or brave as he'd like, since he's wheezing and gasping for air, still. And having difficulty even standing at this point. "What are you gonna do? Take me to the cops? Tell 'em I did what? You think they're gonna believe you?"

Amanda snirks derisively and glances to Constantine. "Amateur," she snarks. "Do you take guys like this to the cops?" she asks the Brit. "I don't, usually." What happens in magicksville, stays in magicksveille... whenever possible.

Constantine shakes his head, exhaling smoke wreathed around his head, "Oh fuck no. Usually I bit the shit out of them to teach them a lesson, but I don't get cops involved. There's an understanding, you know."

"Swhat I thought..." Amanda says, now. "I suppose we could beat the shit out of him," she shrugs. "I mean, he's not going anywhere. But, I know a guy who can make sure this idiot doesn't start playing with stuff he really doesn't understand again. All without killing him, even. Work for you?"

"Waitwaitwaitwait," the guy says, making it to his feet, but finding that the magical shield isn't at all flexible. "What the hell? You can't do that to me..."

Amanda just looks at the fellow and arches a slender brow.

Constantine nods, "Works for me, sure." and then the guy speaks and John just leans in and leers at the guy, getting forehead to forehead with him as much as the shielf will allow. He growls, "Listen to me you little shitheel, and listen good. YOU were the one that summoned something you didn't know how to control. YOU were the one who was manifested by a demon. YOU were the one who was going to be feeding on children and virgins for the next seven nights while you prepared to turn into something that wasn't going to be you anymore, and YOU got your ass saved in the nick of time by the nice lady here and ol' Uncle John himself, so if we says you lose your magic privlidges, then you lose your fuckin' magic privlidges, savvy?" he looks up Amanda and nods, "Do it."

Amanda gives John a winning smile, though there's something sharp in it that has everything to do with the mercurial transition to a tight, if satsified, scowl when she looks at the idiot. A few words and a portal forms directly underneath the fellow. With a yelp, he falls through the earth, to somewhere else entirely. The sorceress' expression lightens and she tips her head to John. "Pleasure working with you," she says lightly. Then, a step... and she's gone with their perp to make sure he doesn't give her friend -- or anyone else -- any more trouble.

Constantine blinks, and she's gone.

John gives a gruff chuckles, shaking his lightly, "So that's what that feels like." he says, amused.

Rising, he speaks quietly to himself, "So what were we doing before being so rudely interrupted? Oh yeh. Home. Bed." then a pause, "No wait. Pancakes. Then home. Then Bed. Yeah, that sounds like a winner, old boy.."