The Fear comes crawlin'.
"Piss. Off!" barked the magician, his cigarette flying from his mouth and bouncing off the chest of the shuddering goth kid who'd started clinging to him like a child. He could almost feel the warm, wet stickiness of the kid's snot running down his coat.
Kid was scared. Maybe he was a psychic adept. Maybe he'd seen something. Maybe he knew something. Didn't fucking matter. The rush of adrenaline at least got his hands to stop shaking long enough to pull his coat from the pasty youth's black-nailed grip.
Constantine had started hating Gotham. The smell of it. The cloud of amphetamine and despair that drifted through the alleys and up from the sewers. The city was rotting. He could feel the pus growing under the surface. And he just couldn't concentrate enough to even look for the source of it.
He didn't want to see it. Was it Neron again? Barbelos? The ghost of the king of the vampires? Had he finally pissed off one of the angels who actually did shit? And how was he supposed to think with the bloody cop cars screaming? Everywhere he looked, the world had gone blue-red-blue-red-blue-red, screaming high-pitched noise that made his molars hurt. In the distance he heard people. More of them. Always more.
Stinking, stupid bloody people. Can't even have a smoke in half the places in this city because they couldn't shut their clever bloody mouths. Smoking'll kill him? He should be so lucky for it to be smoking that did him in. Of course, with his luck, he'd get another last-minute offer. And there weren't many things dumb enough in the world to drink poison twice if they lived through the first one. At least none who's names weren't Constantine.
Taking up his pack of Silk Cut, he tried to tap out a single cigarette but the sound of breaking glass a bit further down the street made him drop them on the sidewalk, an embarassing shriek escaping his lips as he looked back at the source of it. A madman had jumped through a window and was crawling out, shaking like a leaf, spraying blood and frothy spit into his stubbly beard. He was saying something. Something. Something.
goddagedowd. goddagedowd.
Gotta get out.
Yeah.
Constantine looked past the man, something brewing past the man. Something was stirring. A crowd was building. Growing. Stirring and muttering and screaming.
The man stumbled out of the broken window, sobbing like a child as he crawled along the sidewalk. Words were forming in the way he moved. He was sent. He was a messenger. He and the goth kid were sent. But... but what would send them? Why would they send them? Why to him?
Oh, bloody hell.
It all made sense. Someone. Someone had told them he was here. Someone had told them everything. About Newcastle. About Chas and Abby and Kit and Ritchie and all the rest. Someone had told them.
They knew.
The bloody Puritan-descended mob knew and they were coming and all the magic in the world wasn't going to stop them.
So he turned tail and ran from the mob that hadn't noticed him there.
And wouldn't care if it did.
Kid was scared. Maybe he was a psychic adept. Maybe he'd seen something. Maybe he knew something. Didn't fucking matter. The rush of adrenaline at least got his hands to stop shaking long enough to pull his coat from the pasty youth's black-nailed grip.
Constantine had started hating Gotham. The smell of it. The cloud of amphetamine and despair that drifted through the alleys and up from the sewers. The city was rotting. He could feel the pus growing under the surface. And he just couldn't concentrate enough to even look for the source of it.
He didn't want to see it. Was it Neron again? Barbelos? The ghost of the king of the vampires? Had he finally pissed off one of the angels who actually did shit? And how was he supposed to think with the bloody cop cars screaming? Everywhere he looked, the world had gone blue-red-blue-red-blue-red, screaming high-pitched noise that made his molars hurt. In the distance he heard people. More of them. Always more.
Stinking, stupid bloody people. Can't even have a smoke in half the places in this city because they couldn't shut their clever bloody mouths. Smoking'll kill him? He should be so lucky for it to be smoking that did him in. Of course, with his luck, he'd get another last-minute offer. And there weren't many things dumb enough in the world to drink poison twice if they lived through the first one. At least none who's names weren't Constantine.
Taking up his pack of Silk Cut, he tried to tap out a single cigarette but the sound of breaking glass a bit further down the street made him drop them on the sidewalk, an embarassing shriek escaping his lips as he looked back at the source of it. A madman had jumped through a window and was crawling out, shaking like a leaf, spraying blood and frothy spit into his stubbly beard. He was saying something. Something. Something.
goddagedowd. goddagedowd.
Gotta get out.
Yeah.
Constantine looked past the man, something brewing past the man. Something was stirring. A crowd was building. Growing. Stirring and muttering and screaming.
The man stumbled out of the broken window, sobbing like a child as he crawled along the sidewalk. Words were forming in the way he moved. He was sent. He was a messenger. He and the goth kid were sent. But... but what would send them? Why would they send them? Why to him?
Oh, bloody hell.
It all made sense. Someone. Someone had told them he was here. Someone had told them everything. About Newcastle. About Chas and Abby and Kit and Ritchie and all the rest. Someone had told them.
They knew.
The bloody Puritan-descended mob knew and they were coming and all the magic in the world wasn't going to stop them.
So he turned tail and ran from the mob that hadn't noticed him there.
And wouldn't care if it did.