Purveyor of the Dark Arts - August 29th
Twisted Shorts August Fic-a-Day Challenge - Day 29
Title: Purveyor of the Dark Arts
Author: hermione2be
Rating: PG/FR13/K+
Crossover: BtVS/Batman/DC
Disclaimer: I do not own any of BtVS/Angel or Batman/DC people, places, or ideas. This fiction is done simply for pleasure and I receive no profit.
Summary: Athena finds someone who knows a little about everything.
Notes: Part 7 of Athena Follows Bruce
Word Count: 2190
Athena knew exactly where to start. The woman had told her to go to Paddington. Angel had said to look for shops and symbols that may be hard to spot. She had not made a specific choice about the day or not telling Bruce, she had just waited until the mood struck and left.
She started slowly exploring in Paddington. A new batch of snow made the city slightly less crowded. She was, therefore, free to take her time.
When she finally found a building that seemed at the same time to call to her and try to push her away, she immediately entered. It was a magic shop. Sleight of hand magic. She frowned. Something was still calling to her.
Then again, if you were using magic, you would want people to overlook any real magic as part of the cheap tricks.
“What have we here?” a voice asked from between shelves of tricks.
He had short blond hair and dark brown eyes. He wore dark slacks, a white button up with the sleeves rolled up, and a red tie. His eyebrows were drawn together as he studied her.
“Shouldn’t you be in school?” he asked, his entire attitude condescending.
“I’m not a genius like my best friend, but I’m not enrolled anywhere in this country.”
“Ah! American. Tourist? Lost?”
“American, yes. Not a tourist, I’m researching. I’m not lost, I was drawn here.”
The man’s eyebrows rose for a second in surprise. “You feel a draw to a dark store with sleight of hand tricks?”
Gaging - he was trying to figure her out. Athena considered her options. “My name is Persephone. I feel there is magic in this store. I’m a novice, by all means, but I have some sense of it.”
This seemed to annoy the man. “You think you have sense of magic because you’re all dyed dark and edgy. A dark shop with anything magic and you think it’s the oogie boogie kind. Typical American tourist.”
Athena pointed at a small vase on the counter next to her. She whispered a word and waved her hand over it. The vase disappeared.
The man walked forward to the counter. “Nice trick, luv, but just a trick.”
She reached out and grabbed where the vase had been. She lifted the invisible vase and set it down with a thump. She moved her hand away.
Cautiously the man reached for it, eyes going wide when he touched the unseen vase.
“I used it to secure my privacy, make sure my brother and father couldn’t find things I didn’t want found.”
“Like a girlfriend in your closet?” He continued on, not waiting for her to answer. “This is an illusion spell, quite strong but amateur.” He started walking around her, trying to identify her. “Can you bring it back?”
Athena waved her hand and whispered another word. The vase reappeared.
“Latin,” he guessed. But his eyes had narrowed on her, still trying to decipher something. “Your magic is strong, but you’ve never been trained, that’s the most dangerous type of magic to practice.”
“I didn’t start studying magic intentionally.”
“Your Watcher put you up to it then?”
“Never had one of those,” she replied.
“One of the unfound ones.” Pity reflected in his eyes for an instant. “How long?”
“How long what?”
“Do you have?” He rustled through his pockets, huffing in irritation when he did not find what he was looking for. He stalked over to the coatrack. “Apocalypse, prophecy, big evil? What certain evil has brought you here?” He managed to come up with a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. He lit up and took a deep inhale before turning to her again.
Athena watched him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The man was clearly frustrated as he paced around the room. He exhaled a bit. “Slayers that are raised are trained - not just physically, but how to think. They accept that death is part of the process. You rogue ones though…you get the raw deal. Tossed into this mess without experience or expectation. Told you’ve got months to live while fighting things that has made grown men piss themselves since before humans had words for good and evil.”
She frowned. “Who are you?”
“John Constantine,” he said between drags of his cigarette. “Exorcist, demonologist, and purveyor of the Dark Arts.” He said it all quickly, as though it was of little consequence. “What’s the timeline here? Are you going up against something today? Next week? Next month?”
“I still don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Constantine took a long drag of his cigarette and turned to look at her. He met her eye, his were hard, guarding his emotions. “Slayers and the way the Council uses them don’t sit right. But I’ve learned there are some ugly but necessary things in this world. You were drawn because you need help. So, what is it? What is going to kill you?”
“I’ve already died,” she said. “There is already another Slayer.”
That caused Constantine’s shoulders to tighten. “That’s worse.”
“Why?”
“Because the supernatural world likes balance. Two Slayers is like putting your thumb on the scale.”
“It’s not like I did it on purpose,” she shot back, irritated.
“Your kind never do it on purpose, love.” He started moving again, going around the counter and pulling out books, his cigarette dangling in the corner of his mouth.
Athena crossed her arms as he opened books. “My kind. Slayers?”
Constantine looked up from the passage he was skimming. He plucked the cigarette from his mouth. “Heroes.”
Her brows furrowed. “No one said anything about being a hero.”
He scoffed and replaced his cigarette, taking a deep drag. The ember lit his face strangely, making him seem demonic. “It’s not really a choice. You court chaos and to still be standing you fight back.”
She shook her head. “A crazy woman told me to come here. I thought it was prophecy, I thought I would find help not a character analysis from a magician.”
Constantine looked at her and then over her shoulder. “She’s here because of you?”
Athena turned and saw the woman from her first day in London. Just as strange and gray haired as she remembered.
“Explains why you risked getting so close to the Watchers,” he scoffed.
“You…You’re the reason I came here.”
“Persephone,” the woman said, her attention seemed on something…not in the room. She chuckled. “It’s oddly appropriate given your companion.”
“Companion?” Athena asked.
Constantine waved off her question. “Gretchen is a guardian of sorts, one of the few remaining that look out for Slayers.”
“Really?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know why or how - she doesn’t really answer questions directly. Or if she did answer it, it could have been weeks or years ago when she first saw us here.”
“First saw us?”
“Gretchen lives within the flow of time, as I understand it, she can’t control it. So she is here, and aware she’s here, but she is also in the past and the future.”
“A seer?”
“No. Seers are restricted to the past or the future and only see flashes. She is not held to such conventions. It makes it bloody hard to have a conversation with her.”
“Any idea how far forward or back she is?”
“None.”
“You’re in love with the King of Bats,” Gretchen said with a wispy smile.
Athena raised an eyebrow in concern. “I’ve never been in love. So she must be looking to the future.”
“For a Slayer…probably a demon,” Constantine explained. “Your type craves the darkness.”
“I had a vampire tell me I was meant to be in love with him…or I was supposed to love a man from space.”
“That could be your destiny or the destiny of one of the thousands of other Slayers that the world chews up and spits out every century.”
“But you don’t believe in destiny?”
“We’re all destined for something,” he replied.
Gretchen touched Athena’s elbow. “I see a world that looks up to your friends as gods and the world will be protected by their bravery and their powers.”
Athena swallowed, feeling her arm chill from the fragile grip on it. “But will I get to see it?”
“It stands on a precipice. You could break their hearts and strengthen their thirst for vengeance. Or…”
“Or?”
“There is the path you could have taken, the one you abandoned - it would have made your brother his best friend, would have made them family. Instead, they will take their intended path to be the greatest rivalry the world will ever know. And you will never know your brother again.”
Athena opened her mouth in disbelief.
“It cannot be changed now, it is their path.”
“Lex is going to die?”
“Many will die, but many more will live because of your Kal-El.”
Athena frowned not knowing the name. “Then I have to go back.” She moved towards the door.
“That would be the death of your freedom, the end of your life.”
“It doesn’t matter if it saves him.”
Constantine grabbed her arm and pulled her from the door. “Heroes, you’re all the same, you don’t listen.”
Athena wrenched her arm free. “What do you care? You said I screwed things up by dying and creating two Slayers.”
“That doesn’t mean you get to die without a damn good reason.”
“My brother is a good reason.”
“Your brother’s path was forged before your very birth, charging back there will not change it. If you abandon this path,” Gretchen warned, “you will break a heart and it will never truly learn what it needs to become the hero the world needs it to be.”
“How is that my fault?”
Gretchen looked at Constantine. He sighed. “Because Slayers are forces of good…of light…so much light that they can change the course of Fate - which is probably why that bitch cuts you off as soon as she can.”
“I’m descended of a demon of light?” Athena asked, confused.
“Demon?” Gretchen scoffed. “Angels - the original Warriors of Light. That’s where your line is from.”
Constantine looked as surprised as Athena felt. “Run that one more time, love, I think my ears stopped working.”
But Gretchen seemed to have said as much as she intended for she was looking at the shelves - or through the current time.
“You didn’t know?” Athena asked Constantine.
He took the last drag of his current cigarette and shook his head as he stamped it out. “No. I thought Slayers were descended from whatever demons made vampires possible. I never considered…”
“Slayers who redeem those who are dark and inhuman, does the world a service that is unique - and she does it through love.”
“What?”
“That’s what I was told about Slayers. I guess if we’re descended from angels…it makes more sense.”
“What are you doing in London?”
“I’m killing time while my friend is at uni. But we’re not planning to stay in the area for long, he’s got plans that involve traveling.”
“How much time do we have?”
“A few weeks, maybe.”
“Then we should figure out a schedule, get you ready.”
“Ready for what?”
“I don’t know, but you’ll need a few more tricks than just making objects invisible.”
“You plan to train me in magic?”
“It’s why she brought you here,” he gestured where Gretchen had been. The old woman had disappeared.
“I had more questions for her,” Athena admitted.
“She gave you all the answers she’s going to. Being too close to the Council is dangerous for her - for any of the Guardians. She must have deemed it worth the risk to come all the way to London.” He grabbed another cigarette and lit it in frustration. “Which means, you must learn - and quickly.”
88888888
Athena arrived back at the house late in the day. Bruce was sitting at the table with a stack of books.
“I thought you might have left,” he admitted as he put down the book his was reading.
“I leave a note if I’m not coming back,” she assured as she sat. She gestured to his books. “What’s all this?”
“Since you know what I’m doing, there was no reason to sit in the library for hours.”
“Probably easier to concentrate.”
“Maybe. Where did you go?”
“London, Paddington.”
“You went chasing what that woman said to you?”
“Led me to a magician, one who is going to teach me magic. Apparently she’s one of the Slayer’s guardians - and I’m not part demon, Slayers were created from angels.”
Bruce paused in his movements. “Angels?”
“Warriors of the light…apparently even my tutor didn’t know that.”
“Your tutor?”
“Magic tutor, he’s very annoyed that I started using magic before I was trained.” She made a face. “Then again, ‘annoyed’ may just be his baseline.”
“Does he know what you are?”
“He does. And he knows that there is a time crunch, so he’s not waiting.” She sighed. “Though he also things it’s futile.”
“You a poor student?”
“No…just one who is likely to die before I get to use any portion of his teachings.”
“What?”
Title: Purveyor of the Dark Arts
Author: hermione2be
Rating: PG/FR13/K+
Crossover: BtVS/Batman/DC
Disclaimer: I do not own any of BtVS/Angel or Batman/DC people, places, or ideas. This fiction is done simply for pleasure and I receive no profit.
Summary: Athena finds someone who knows a little about everything.
Notes: Part 7 of Athena Follows Bruce
Word Count: 2190
Athena knew exactly where to start. The woman had told her to go to Paddington. Angel had said to look for shops and symbols that may be hard to spot. She had not made a specific choice about the day or not telling Bruce, she had just waited until the mood struck and left.
She started slowly exploring in Paddington. A new batch of snow made the city slightly less crowded. She was, therefore, free to take her time.
When she finally found a building that seemed at the same time to call to her and try to push her away, she immediately entered. It was a magic shop. Sleight of hand magic. She frowned. Something was still calling to her.
Then again, if you were using magic, you would want people to overlook any real magic as part of the cheap tricks.
“What have we here?” a voice asked from between shelves of tricks.
He had short blond hair and dark brown eyes. He wore dark slacks, a white button up with the sleeves rolled up, and a red tie. His eyebrows were drawn together as he studied her.
“Shouldn’t you be in school?” he asked, his entire attitude condescending.
“I’m not a genius like my best friend, but I’m not enrolled anywhere in this country.”
“Ah! American. Tourist? Lost?”
“American, yes. Not a tourist, I’m researching. I’m not lost, I was drawn here.”
The man’s eyebrows rose for a second in surprise. “You feel a draw to a dark store with sleight of hand tricks?”
Gaging - he was trying to figure her out. Athena considered her options. “My name is Persephone. I feel there is magic in this store. I’m a novice, by all means, but I have some sense of it.”
This seemed to annoy the man. “You think you have sense of magic because you’re all dyed dark and edgy. A dark shop with anything magic and you think it’s the oogie boogie kind. Typical American tourist.”
Athena pointed at a small vase on the counter next to her. She whispered a word and waved her hand over it. The vase disappeared.
The man walked forward to the counter. “Nice trick, luv, but just a trick.”
She reached out and grabbed where the vase had been. She lifted the invisible vase and set it down with a thump. She moved her hand away.
Cautiously the man reached for it, eyes going wide when he touched the unseen vase.
“I used it to secure my privacy, make sure my brother and father couldn’t find things I didn’t want found.”
“Like a girlfriend in your closet?” He continued on, not waiting for her to answer. “This is an illusion spell, quite strong but amateur.” He started walking around her, trying to identify her. “Can you bring it back?”
Athena waved her hand and whispered another word. The vase reappeared.
“Latin,” he guessed. But his eyes had narrowed on her, still trying to decipher something. “Your magic is strong, but you’ve never been trained, that’s the most dangerous type of magic to practice.”
“I didn’t start studying magic intentionally.”
“Your Watcher put you up to it then?”
“Never had one of those,” she replied.
“One of the unfound ones.” Pity reflected in his eyes for an instant. “How long?”
“How long what?”
“Do you have?” He rustled through his pockets, huffing in irritation when he did not find what he was looking for. He stalked over to the coatrack. “Apocalypse, prophecy, big evil? What certain evil has brought you here?” He managed to come up with a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. He lit up and took a deep inhale before turning to her again.
Athena watched him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The man was clearly frustrated as he paced around the room. He exhaled a bit. “Slayers that are raised are trained - not just physically, but how to think. They accept that death is part of the process. You rogue ones though…you get the raw deal. Tossed into this mess without experience or expectation. Told you’ve got months to live while fighting things that has made grown men piss themselves since before humans had words for good and evil.”
She frowned. “Who are you?”
“John Constantine,” he said between drags of his cigarette. “Exorcist, demonologist, and purveyor of the Dark Arts.” He said it all quickly, as though it was of little consequence. “What’s the timeline here? Are you going up against something today? Next week? Next month?”
“I still don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Constantine took a long drag of his cigarette and turned to look at her. He met her eye, his were hard, guarding his emotions. “Slayers and the way the Council uses them don’t sit right. But I’ve learned there are some ugly but necessary things in this world. You were drawn because you need help. So, what is it? What is going to kill you?”
“I’ve already died,” she said. “There is already another Slayer.”
That caused Constantine’s shoulders to tighten. “That’s worse.”
“Why?”
“Because the supernatural world likes balance. Two Slayers is like putting your thumb on the scale.”
“It’s not like I did it on purpose,” she shot back, irritated.
“Your kind never do it on purpose, love.” He started moving again, going around the counter and pulling out books, his cigarette dangling in the corner of his mouth.
Athena crossed her arms as he opened books. “My kind. Slayers?”
Constantine looked up from the passage he was skimming. He plucked the cigarette from his mouth. “Heroes.”
Her brows furrowed. “No one said anything about being a hero.”
He scoffed and replaced his cigarette, taking a deep drag. The ember lit his face strangely, making him seem demonic. “It’s not really a choice. You court chaos and to still be standing you fight back.”
She shook her head. “A crazy woman told me to come here. I thought it was prophecy, I thought I would find help not a character analysis from a magician.”
Constantine looked at her and then over her shoulder. “She’s here because of you?”
Athena turned and saw the woman from her first day in London. Just as strange and gray haired as she remembered.
“Explains why you risked getting so close to the Watchers,” he scoffed.
“You…You’re the reason I came here.”
“Persephone,” the woman said, her attention seemed on something…not in the room. She chuckled. “It’s oddly appropriate given your companion.”
“Companion?” Athena asked.
Constantine waved off her question. “Gretchen is a guardian of sorts, one of the few remaining that look out for Slayers.”
“Really?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know why or how - she doesn’t really answer questions directly. Or if she did answer it, it could have been weeks or years ago when she first saw us here.”
“First saw us?”
“Gretchen lives within the flow of time, as I understand it, she can’t control it. So she is here, and aware she’s here, but she is also in the past and the future.”
“A seer?”
“No. Seers are restricted to the past or the future and only see flashes. She is not held to such conventions. It makes it bloody hard to have a conversation with her.”
“Any idea how far forward or back she is?”
“None.”
“You’re in love with the King of Bats,” Gretchen said with a wispy smile.
Athena raised an eyebrow in concern. “I’ve never been in love. So she must be looking to the future.”
“For a Slayer…probably a demon,” Constantine explained. “Your type craves the darkness.”
“I had a vampire tell me I was meant to be in love with him…or I was supposed to love a man from space.”
“That could be your destiny or the destiny of one of the thousands of other Slayers that the world chews up and spits out every century.”
“But you don’t believe in destiny?”
“We’re all destined for something,” he replied.
Gretchen touched Athena’s elbow. “I see a world that looks up to your friends as gods and the world will be protected by their bravery and their powers.”
Athena swallowed, feeling her arm chill from the fragile grip on it. “But will I get to see it?”
“It stands on a precipice. You could break their hearts and strengthen their thirst for vengeance. Or…”
“Or?”
“There is the path you could have taken, the one you abandoned - it would have made your brother his best friend, would have made them family. Instead, they will take their intended path to be the greatest rivalry the world will ever know. And you will never know your brother again.”
Athena opened her mouth in disbelief.
“It cannot be changed now, it is their path.”
“Lex is going to die?”
“Many will die, but many more will live because of your Kal-El.”
Athena frowned not knowing the name. “Then I have to go back.” She moved towards the door.
“That would be the death of your freedom, the end of your life.”
“It doesn’t matter if it saves him.”
Constantine grabbed her arm and pulled her from the door. “Heroes, you’re all the same, you don’t listen.”
Athena wrenched her arm free. “What do you care? You said I screwed things up by dying and creating two Slayers.”
“That doesn’t mean you get to die without a damn good reason.”
“My brother is a good reason.”
“Your brother’s path was forged before your very birth, charging back there will not change it. If you abandon this path,” Gretchen warned, “you will break a heart and it will never truly learn what it needs to become the hero the world needs it to be.”
“How is that my fault?”
Gretchen looked at Constantine. He sighed. “Because Slayers are forces of good…of light…so much light that they can change the course of Fate - which is probably why that bitch cuts you off as soon as she can.”
“I’m descended of a demon of light?” Athena asked, confused.
“Demon?” Gretchen scoffed. “Angels - the original Warriors of Light. That’s where your line is from.”
Constantine looked as surprised as Athena felt. “Run that one more time, love, I think my ears stopped working.”
But Gretchen seemed to have said as much as she intended for she was looking at the shelves - or through the current time.
“You didn’t know?” Athena asked Constantine.
He took the last drag of his current cigarette and shook his head as he stamped it out. “No. I thought Slayers were descended from whatever demons made vampires possible. I never considered…”
“Slayers who redeem those who are dark and inhuman, does the world a service that is unique - and she does it through love.”
“What?”
“That’s what I was told about Slayers. I guess if we’re descended from angels…it makes more sense.”
“What are you doing in London?”
“I’m killing time while my friend is at uni. But we’re not planning to stay in the area for long, he’s got plans that involve traveling.”
“How much time do we have?”
“A few weeks, maybe.”
“Then we should figure out a schedule, get you ready.”
“Ready for what?”
“I don’t know, but you’ll need a few more tricks than just making objects invisible.”
“You plan to train me in magic?”
“It’s why she brought you here,” he gestured where Gretchen had been. The old woman had disappeared.
“I had more questions for her,” Athena admitted.
“She gave you all the answers she’s going to. Being too close to the Council is dangerous for her - for any of the Guardians. She must have deemed it worth the risk to come all the way to London.” He grabbed another cigarette and lit it in frustration. “Which means, you must learn - and quickly.”
88888888
Athena arrived back at the house late in the day. Bruce was sitting at the table with a stack of books.
“I thought you might have left,” he admitted as he put down the book his was reading.
“I leave a note if I’m not coming back,” she assured as she sat. She gestured to his books. “What’s all this?”
“Since you know what I’m doing, there was no reason to sit in the library for hours.”
“Probably easier to concentrate.”
“Maybe. Where did you go?”
“London, Paddington.”
“You went chasing what that woman said to you?”
“Led me to a magician, one who is going to teach me magic. Apparently she’s one of the Slayer’s guardians - and I’m not part demon, Slayers were created from angels.”
Bruce paused in his movements. “Angels?”
“Warriors of the light…apparently even my tutor didn’t know that.”
“Your tutor?”
“Magic tutor, he’s very annoyed that I started using magic before I was trained.” She made a face. “Then again, ‘annoyed’ may just be his baseline.”
“Does he know what you are?”
“He does. And he knows that there is a time crunch, so he’s not waiting.” She sighed. “Though he also things it’s futile.”
“You a poor student?”
“No…just one who is likely to die before I get to use any portion of his teachings.”
“What?”