![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jebbypalOkay, so ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
deathisyourart wants to see this at least. Not sure what other interest there may be since I know a ton of people are WIP-phobes, and I make no guarantees about ever really going back to finished this. Basically this is about 8500 words that I started writing S2 hiatus. poisontaster encouraged me like crazy and gave me some feedback (if I'm not mistaken). Also, cassiee I believe. Eventually it got Kripked enough that I'd have to fix a ton of things that I shelved it and never really got back to.....Now, I'm not sure if I will or not. Anyway, hope someone enjoys it.
rating: teen
summary: Sam and Dean have trouble on a hunt and meet an unlikely ally. Winchester luck ensues.
spoilers: Early SPN s2 spoilers, beyond that, uncertain. A bit of a mix of Constantine movie and some of the Constantine comic book verses.
Disclaimer: None of the characters belong to me.
Chapter 1: Any Brawl You Walk Away From
The gun is on the floor across the room where the beast kicked it hours earlier. Or more likely minutes. They tended to drag out when some undead freak was using your ribs as a soccer ball. Dean was willing to bet Einstein didn’t factor pain into his theory of relativity. Dean’d ask Sammy, but Sam was currently sleeping off the steel post to the forehead that this thing had dealt out when they first entered the abandoned office building.
A growl tells Dean that the beasty has tired of Kick the Hunter. “An overrated game, I always did say,” Dean forces out past the pain of broken ribs and bruised muscles. The lack of answering repartee from Sam worries him, but he can’t let that throw him off his game. Not if we’re going to get out of this alive.
Dean grabs his knife from his ankle sheath just as the beast picks him up. Somehow he manages to keep hold of the knife as he thrown across the room and bounces off the cheesing wood paneling that serves for walls. As his face meets the threadbare adobe colored carpeting, Dean has time to be thankful that at least the abandoned office building was devoid of cubicles. He hates it when he gets plastic shards embedded in his back.
Glancing over his shoulder, he spots the beast slowly stomping towards him.
Wincing, Dean struggles to his knees and prepares to face the beast. Behind it, he can see through the front office window and the deserted LA street beyond it. And red lights… he shakes his head. That couldn’t be right. It ain’t Christmas. Concussions usually don’t make him see colored lights, but his head did bounce off the wall pretty hard. Opening and closing his eyes, he looks again to see the beast closing in steadily, but warily, and through the window, he now sees red and blue police lights flashing from the dash of a black SUV.
Great, now he has to find a way to get him and Sam out of this alive and try to watch out for a civilian as well. Could this night possibly get any worse?
The beast is close enough for Dean to feint throwing the knife. When it dodges, he scrambles across the room towards his gun. He almost makes it when the thing’s foot (or fist, did it matter? Both hurt like hell. He’d swear to that on any book you put in front of him) connects squarely with Dean’s hip causing him to fall and skid the rest of the way to the gun. And past it until his head cracks once more on the uglified wood paneling that seems to be required interior decoration by every soul sucking corporation in America.
Fumbling through the random darkness, bright lights, and waves of dizziness for the gun, he hears an unmistakeable sound. He’s only heard once before in his entire hunting career - Dragon’s Breath. Way too expensive for the brand of hunting that the Winchester’s do (and generally overkill), but very effective on just about every damn demon or evil fiend out there.
The beast wails and through the fuzziness of his concussed vision, Dean smiles when it lights up in blue flames and thrashes around the room in its death throes. Even as his brain begins saying how bad a flaming body moving around a room decorated with cheap wood paneling is.
His brain shuts up pretty quickly when Dean sees the flame thrower (metal – probably silver, and gold, or brass. Either way, very pawnable) pointed directly at him. He drops his gun and raises his hands.
At that point, his body decides it’s had enough and that if this day won’t stop going wrong, it’s going to end it for him by passing out in a heap. Yep, that’s it. Unconscious heap. Cause there’s no way in hell he’ll admit to fainting at the sight of the pissed off woman holding the flame thrower. None at all.
“And you brought them here, why?” a man asks.
“They’re human. If I took them to a hospital, I’d have to come up with an explanation for their condition. The cause of which is currently burning down an abandoned building and wouldn’t have fit in a prison cell anyway,” a woman answers. “I figured you must have some connections to get them fixed up.”
Instincts tell Dean to stay still even if every fiber of his being wants to check on his little brother. At least from what the couple are saying, he assumes the chick had rescued his brother as well. Better have.
“Doesn’t mean much. They could have raised the thing you burned. Any clue what it was or did you shoot first?”
“It ate about a dozen homeless before I got a lead on its lair. I shot first. If they raised it, they didn’t have any control. It was attacking them when I got there.”
“When humans make deals with the devil, they usually end up bit, Angela.”
“They’re awake.”
Busted.
“I know. I wanted to see how long they’d play dead.”
Dean opens his eyes even as his hands check for any one of his many weapons. He comes up empty, not even the knife is left in the back of his pants.
A man in a black suit jacket, white shirt, and black tie stands above him with a nasty gun aimed directly at his head. Wonder who his supplier is and how much one of those beauties cost, Dean wonders as he focuses on the gun. The dude tilts his head and Dean looks over to see all of his weapons, and Sam’s from the looks of it, piled well out of reach on a cheap kitchen table.
Dean spots Sam prone, but slowly moving, on the floor on the other side of the rather bare room. Bare except for the incantations carved into the wood around the windowsills, the big ass cross over what Dean figures is the front door, and the two people holding weapons on them both. The chick has a normal gun. Police issued, he guesses as he remembers the lights from earlier. You had to wonder if things could get any worse, didn’t you, idiot?
“Dean, what’s going on?” Sam asks in a loopy voice.
“Just making friends with the nice man holding the kickass gun,” Dean answers. He knows from experience that Sam’s rolling his eyes.
“So what were you two boys doing in that building? Make a wrong turn looking for a rave?” the man asks.
“Originally? A family member hired us after their deranged cousin went missing. Which led us to look into that rash of homeless murders for fear that he’d been a victim. After that, getting thoroughly thrashed for our trouble until your friend showed up. Angela, is it? Thanks,” Dean said.
“He’s lying,” Angela says
“Really? You’re finely honed psychic ability inform you of that?” the man replies.
Psychic. A joke, surely. There’s no way that Dean has bad enough luck to stumble across a psychic when he already has one for a brother.
“No, my many years of interrogating perps on the job, Constantine.”
Dean looks over at Sam to see his brother’s wide eyes staring back in shock.
“Constantine? The John Constantine?” Sam asks with more than a little awe in his voice. Little brother’s head wasn’t too shook up if he remembered that. Course, it would be hard to forget. Bobby used to love to tell them stories about the famed John Constantine when they were younger.
“Who’s asking?” Constantine asks, readjusting his aim on Dean.
Dean raises his hands again. “Whoah, whoah, whoah. No one bad. We’re on your side.”
“I don’t have a side,” Constantine growls out in a low voice.
“So you don’t enjoy blasting demons back to hell?” Sam asks.
“Demons, angels, it really makes no difference to me,” Constantine answers, but he does lower the gun to his side.
Dean takes the opportunity to push up into a sitting position against the wall. “Glad you aren’t picky. I hope you don’t include humans in that because we kinda enjoy being alive.”
Sam grunts. “Speak for yourself. I think that thing broke my arm.”
“Again?” Dean shakes his head. “I keep telling you to tuck and roll, bro.”
Angela holsters her gun. “Well, I definitely brought them to the right place. They’re just as insane as you are.”
--> could do this scene from sam's pov and then the next from john's still w/ revelation about angela seeing the vision? No interrupts flow too much. Maybe alternate chapters back and forth from dean to sam?
It’s a couple of hours later, though Dean won’t put a firm figure on it given the size of his concussion and the really nice whiskey that Constantine is sharing for pain relief. Constantine is currently wrapping Sam’s wrist up after deciding it probably isn’t broken (while it isn’t bending oddly, it’s not bending without Sam screaming either. But they really don’t have the cash for a hospital visit at the moment, and most of their IDs are currently parked on a lot with a burning building on the other side of LA).
“So how do you know John?” the lady cop asks.
“I wouldn’t mind knowing that myself,” Constantine says.
Sam, much loopier from the whiskey and aspirin that Constantine had poured down his throat, answers. “Growing up, Bobby used to tell us all sorts of stories about you and Pastor Jim. Said the three of you cut quite a path together back in the day.”
“Bobby Singer?” Constantine asks with a frown. “Thought he went into the wrecking business.”
Dean tops off his glass of whiskey as he answers. “He did. Still collects a lot of occult books and gives us a discount on car repairs. By the way, my car gets towed, you are so paying to get it out,” he tells Angela.
She rolls her eyes at him and starts to say something, but pauses and puts a hand to her head. At the same time, Sam yells and falls to the floor in classic vision mode.
“What the hell?” Constantine says as he catches Angela before she falls to the floor. Dean crosses the room where his brother is writhing beside the stained bed he was lying on.
“Jess. Dean, I saw Jess,” Sam croaks out before passing out.
“A little help here?” Dean asks. Constantine leads Angela into the little kitchen and gets her situated at the table before coming to help lift Sam back on the bed.
“That happen often?”
“More than I like,” Dean says. “Pretty stupid for the psychic friends network to make him helpless while yakking about the future in my opinion. What about her?”
“I’m right here,” Angela says. “And I’m fine.”
“So what? Bleedover from the boy then?” Constantine asks.
“I don’t know, John. You tell me. I haven’t been doing this very long,” Angela answers. “God, my head is killing me though.”
“Wait, she really is a psychic?” Dean asks
“Psychic enough to almost create hell on Earth,” Constantine says, earning a glare from Angela. “His visions bring you to LA?”
Dean shakes his head. “We really were hired by a loon’s family.”
Constantine pours a glass of whiskey. “So what’d he see. Sounded like he said a name.”
Yeah, a name. Sam’d been going on about catching glimpses of Jess in dirty gas station mirrors and unwashed windows for months. Dean had hoped that giving his brother things to hunt and a goal (the death of the demon that killed Mom, Jess, and now Dad) would be enough to help Sam through the grief. Ever since Ellicot possessed him in the asylum though, he’d been seeing Jess (and occasionally other dead people). Dean had no intention of telling Constantine his brother was slowly cracking up.
“Jess,” Angela states.
“What?” Dean asks, playing dumb. There’s no way. As far as Dean can tell, there’s only one good thing about Sam’s visions, the thrashing generally keeps bystanders from hearing what he might whimper.
Angela takes Constantine’s glass from him and drinks it before answering. “Jess, he called her Jess. At least I think we were seeing the same thing. He was there. They both were. The girl was about to kill you,” Angela says as she looks at Dean. “He was pleading with her not to and he called her Jess. And sweetheart.”
Dean looks back over at his unconscious brother. Looks like Sammy had started keeping secrets.
Dean pretends not to notice when Constantine tells Angela that she should leave. He waits till they step outside the apartment before grabbing his glass (always have an alibi if you’re eavesdropping, Dean-o) and following them.
“You’d think you’d want the person who just gave you a lead on the Dynamic Duo in there to stick around,” Angela says. Dean’s glad to see that the door’s been left open a crack.
“I’ve told you before, it’s not healthy to around me.”
“I can take care of myself, John.”
“Good, because I can’t. Do me a favor and see if you can get their car towed over here or something.”
Dean can pretty much imagine the look Angela is giving Constantine right now. He’s gotten that look a time or two from Sam. Sam had given Dad that look an awful lot.
“At least tell me what’s going on,” Angela pleads.
A slight thud and plaster drifting down from the ceiling tells Dean that Constantine just punched the wall.
“If they’re who I think they are, you’re better off not knowing. In fact, you’d be better off taking a vacation to the other side of the world right about now.”
“If that’s the case, why aren’t you telling them to get lost.”
“I gotta satisfy my death wish somehow now that I don’t smoke. The car, Angela. And try to make sure no one searches it, or it’ll never get it released.”
Creaking floorboards send Dean fleeing to the kitchen sink to fill his glass with water.
“Hear enough?” Constantine asks.
Dean’s good at lying generally. Used to get away with it to pretty much everyone except Dad and Pastor Jim. Something tells him that Constantine falls into that same category, except, well, you know, alive.
“You seem to know what’s going on here. Mind clueing a brother in?”
Constantine drops into the kitchen chair and rubs his face. “God, I’d kill for a cigarette.” He looks over at the bed. “He still out?” When Dean nods, Constantine grabs the bottle of whiskey and takes a swig. “I don’t know all of it, but knowing that your last name is Winchester is enough.”
“How?”
“John Winchester is the only man I know that would leave his kids with either Murphy or Singer. Most parents would rather let Dick Cheney play baby sitter than those two.”
“There’s nothing wrong with –“
“Son, I didn’t say there was. Most parents avoid our ilk instinctually.”
Dean avoids the implications of that reasoning as he sips his water while leaning on the sink. “You still haven’t said what you think is going on.”
“And I won’t until we hear what your brother has to say. In the meantime, the salt is in the cabinet behind you. Won’t hurt to line the doors and windows.”
Looking at the protective runes and scriptures carved into the door frame and window sills is when Dean starts to get goose bumps. Salt over the thresholds is like pouring water over a gas stove once the gas main has been turned off. If anything demonic can come uninvited through the barriers already there, salt sure as hell isn’t going to stop them.
Busy work has always made Dean more nervous than just plain waiting.
She can feel him. He feels the same even though she’s altered. She still has the memories though, the taste of love. Now it tastes bitter. Betrayed. Left out.
“His fault,” the darkness whispers. She agrees. She’s not entirely sure why it took her so long to do so.
It doesn’t matter though. He’ll pay for what he did. She’s got the perfect punishment in mind too.
“Such a good girl,” the voices whisper. She basks in the praise. “We’ll never leave you.”
Chapter 2: Nobody’s Perfect
Constantine keeps his promise and remains silent until Sam wakes up. Dean spends that hour thoroughly bored. At least at a motel, he’d have cable to watch while he cleaned his guns and knives (or at least the ones that they have on them. Hopefully Angela does manage to rescue the Impala). Here, he’s stuck with grainy network channels. Worse, it’s daytime TV. He’s half convinced that Dr. Phil is the spawn of Satan.
“Eung..Dean?”
“Right here, Sammy. Here,” he instructs as he places two painkillers in Sam’s palm. After digging through Sam’s coat and finding the mostly empty bottle, Dean’s convinced that Sam’s been hiding his visions recently.
Sam dry swallows the pills before squinting his eyes open and looking around the room. “Constantine’s. Lady cop saved our butts and brought us here before you got a call from the Psychic Friends Network,” Dean summarizes. That makes Sam sit up fast and grab Dean painfully on two of his many bruises.
“Jess. I saw Jess. We’ve got to get to her.”
“Whoa, sport,” Dean says. Worry and fear make the whiskey in his stomach sour. “We don’t have to go anywhere. Jess is dead.” Sam’s face crumbles.
“What did you see?” Constantine asks.
“No, he’s right, it must’ve been the concussion,” Sam says as he sinks back onto the bed.
“Humor me,” Constantine dryly insists.
Sam looks from Dean to Constantine and back again before repeating what Angela had said earlier. “It was Jess. She was on a playground. She was so happy. And then she had Dean and was going to kill him. It doesn’t make any sense. It had to be the concussion.”
“And Jess, how did she die?” Constantine asks.
Sam jumps off the bed and sprints in the direction of the toilet. Dean winces. The painkillers probably didn’t mix too well with the earlier aspirin and whiskey. “Same way as our mother did,” Dean answers.
Constantine looks towards the bathroom. “He was there for that one too, wasn’t he?”
“We both were. Carried him out of the first one and dragged him out when Jess was burning up a year ago. If you’ve got an epiphany to share with us about this damn demon, speak up.”
“Did you see her body?”
“I was four, no, I didn’t see my mother’s body.”
“He means Jess,” Sam answers from where he’s leaning against the door frame of the bathroom. “No, there was nothing left.”
“What’s your dad have to say about all this?” Constantine asks.
Dean’s getting pissed at all the questions. “Nothing. He died of a heart attack just after we all survived being run over by a demon driven semi.”
That news shocks Constantine silent for a few seconds. “So he never got the Colt?”
Dean glances over at Sam, but so far, his brother is winning the contest of wills with gravity. “No, we found it. Five bullets, one massive car crash, an out of body experience, and our dad dying, it kinda got –“
“Lost,” Sam finishes.
“Lost? You just lost one of the most powerful and effective weapons against demons,” Constantine restates.
“Yeah, that about covers it,” Dean replies. “It wasn’t the finest moment in Winchester hunting history.”
Constantine rubs his face and then begins to pace between the bedroom and kitchen. “Your girlfriend - what was her full name?”
“Jessica Moore. Why?” Sam answers.
Constantine turns and heads for the apartment door. “Stay here, I’ll be back.”
“If you’re going after that demon, or information on it, we’re coming with you,” Sam says, as he stumbles away from the bathroom.
“No, you’re not. Both of you can barely stand and you’ll only draw more unwanted attention to me than normal. Stay here, don’t invite anyone or anything in. Understand?” Constantine’s glare reminds Dean a lot of Missouri. Feels like they both can look right through you and see the mischief you’re planning.
“We’re not newbies, Constantine. We’ve been doing this since we could walk,” Dean answers.
“No, you’ve been chasing werewolves and poltergeists since you were kids. This is demons, as in the big leagues. I told your father he was an idiot to go after this thing with anything less than magic and creatures of his own, but he didn’t want to get his soul, or yours I suspect, dirty. If you aren’t going to do what I say, get the fuck out of my town before you get anyone I know hurt.”
With that, Constantine slams the door.
Constantine walks around the block to a diner to get a cup of coffee. After paying, he pulls out his cell phone to call Angela.
Dodson.
“It’s Constantine. Have you got their car yet?”
I just got to the impound lot, John. No, I don’t have it yet.
“When you do, could you stop by Joe’s Diner? I want to have a look at it before I go asking stupid questions from folks that don’t like me.”
What happened to get the hell out of town?
“Honestly, that still applies. But drop off the car here before you leave on vacation.”
He isn’t surprised when she hangs up on him. He knows she hates being kept out of the loop, but he hopes that for once she’ll take his advice. Hell, he just might knock her out and put in a box addressed to Bora Bora if she doesn’t. John Winchester always did give him the willies, and he’s not getting any warm fuzzy feelings off his two boys.
It takes about an hour before Angela shows up with the car. Constantine whistles out loud when he sees it. He’s not normally someone who cares much about cars, but even he can appreciate the beauty that is the 1967 Chevrolet Impala. In black to boot.
“Park it in the alley,” Constantine tells her when she pulls to the curb outside the diner.
“Okay, so what’s so special about the car? Is it possessed?”
Constantine just rolls his eyes. “Keys?”
When he pops the trunk, the space is much smaller than should be in a car this size. He hands two bags of close and a large container of salt to Angela and then starts feeling around. Soon his hand hits the hidden switch and the false bottom rises.
“Holy shit. No wonder they wanted it back so fast.”
Constantine nods in agreement. The trunk holds a large array (even by his standards) of shotguns, pistols, and rifles, plus knives, stakes, chains, gas cans filled with…yep, holy water, and tools for smelting bullets.
“Should be a journal in here somewhere. John Winchester always carried a ratty old journal,” he mumbles. Finally, he goes around and gets in the car. He finds the journal peeking out from under the passenger side seat.
Flipping through it, he finds information on all the normal things that hunters would go after: succubi, werewolves, ghosts, and the like. A page here and there describes other odd fires that Winchester had followed up on.
The wind blows just right through the car and causes him to shiver. It’s been oddly cold for April in LA. Not enough to be quite out of the norm, but enough that even with his suit jacket he gets the chills now and again. From the way that Angela’s rubbing her hands together, she’s feeling the temperature as well.
“I should let you get back to work,” Constantine says. “Thanks for bringing the car over.”
She raises an eyebrow. “Well, I did what you said and took some vacation. So I can drive you wherever you need to go.”
“I was dead serious about what I said before, Angela. This isn’t safe. Especially with your abilities.”
She just crosses her arms. “Abilities you have as well. And that kid in there. I can help.”
“That kid has been dealing with this stuff almost since he was born. You’ve been doing it a few years. These are demons, we’re talking about.”
“I thought you said only half-breeds could get onto our plane.”
He gets out and shuts the Impala’s trunk. “Technically, that’s true, but there’s always a loophole. I’m not sure what this thing is, but from what I’ve heard, it’s not a normal half-breed.” With that, he pulls out his wallet and gives Angela twenty dollars.
“What’s this for? Supplies?”
He shakes his head and gets into the car. “Cab fare,” he tells her as he slams the door shut. He hates driving in LA, but he hates the idea of anyone else getting hurt because of him even more.
Sam's rather relieved once Constantine leaves.
Traffic in LA is a bitch, but Constantine manages to reach the planetarium of the Jesuit university just in time for the matinee. He’d of preferred not to have to sit through the entire show, but he resigns himself to an hour in a dark theater. Maybe it wouldn’t have been such a bad idea to have brought Angela along after all.
It takes a while for the room to clear after the show, but soon he’s alone with the speaker.
“You show a lot of nerve showing up after what happened to Gabriel,” the lecturer says.
Everyone’s still a little tetchy that Gabriel was made human for trying to bring Mamnon to Earth while Constantine actually managed to erase the sins damning him hell. He just shrugs it off. Half-breeds (angels or demons, makes no difference really. One just causes less trouble than the other) aren’t that different from humans – most have a chip on their shoulder about something. “Gabriel made a choice, Sariel. Are you going to hold that against me?” He looks up to where the heavens are still projected on the ceiling. “Still teaching man about how the progress of the heavens, eh?”
“What brings you here, Constantine?”
“I need information about a soul that passed about a year ago. Jessica Moore.”
Sariel’s eyes flash silver and his wings ruffle. It’s impossible for Constantine to tell if it’s in irritation or not. “Why?”
Constantine stands and walks down the aisle closer to the archangel. “Well, two people saw her die. And now two psychics have had visions that she’ll kill someone. It doesn’t add up.” Or it does. But he doesn’t like the sum he’s getting off of it.
“And you’re not telling me everything,” Sariel accuses.
“I don’t know everything.”
“Humility in the great John Constantine. Miracles do happen.” Sariel closes his eyes briefly. “She died, but her soul was, how would you say, redirected.”
“By the same thing that killed her?”
“I’m not the omniscient one, John. That’s all I know.”
Sariel’s news bothers John more than he’d like to admit. Not quite as bad as learning that Gabriel had decided to help Mamnon start hell on Earth early, but definitely not good. The notes in Winchester’s journal are as sketchy as he remembers, and it’s been five years since he’d talked with the man.
Even after twenty years of hunting, Winchester hadn’t been able to tell Constantine anything for him to be able to help. Well, beyond telling the Winchester patriarch that what he was fighting was big and bad and he’d have to get his hands dirty if he wanted to live through it. It looked like he’d ignored the advice.
Normals getting involved in exorcisms and hunting never ended well in Constantine’s opinions. Not that it ended all that well for those who weren’t normal. Seemed like Sam Winchester wasn’t quite normal. Which only peaked Constantine’s curiosity since there’d been no mention of that when John Winchester came calling.
He’d been impressed with Winchester’s reputation, but dubious of his means. It was a miracle he and his sons had survived unscathed as long as they had.
That or there was a very patient demon with a very specific plan. Constantine cursed at the traffic impatiently. He had a feeling that the Winchester boys were running out of time.
When he arrives back at his apartment, Dean, Sam, and Angela are sitting at the wooden kitchen table eating fast food. “What the hell, I told you not to let anyone in!” Constantine almost yells.
The three exchange glances before Angela speaks up. “They needed food. Man can’t live on whiskey alone. There’s a bag in the fridge for you.”
Constantine pins Sam and Dean with a glare. “The next time I give you an order, you’d better follow it. If not, get the hell out of here right now. Your car’s parked in the alley.” He throws the keys to the Impala on the table and stalks to the bathroom.
When he comes back, all three are still there.
“So?” Dean asks, as if nothing just happened. “Find anything during your illegal search of my car?”
Constantine grabs the food from the fridge and sits down. After he chews a bite of the cold burger, he takes the journal out of his jacket pocket and tosses it on the table. “Since I saw your Dad five years ago, it doesn’t look like he’d learned anything new.”
Sam shakes his head. “That stuff’s all old. He took off on his own a while back and started to find a pattern.”
“What kind of pattern?”
“Weather changes, cattle mutilations, crop circles. That sort of thing,” Dean answers.
“All of these would happen during the weeks before another person was killed by fire. By the demon. And, they all happened on the day that an infant turned six months old,” Sam adds.
The bad feeling in Constantine’s stomach gets worse. There’d been an outbreak of some cattle virus at one of the stockyards outside the city in the paper this last weekend. And it was awful chilly in LA for April.
“We actually stopped one just before the wreck,” Dean says in a subdued voice. Suddenly, Constantine knows where quite a few of the bullets for the Colt must have gone.
“Dad said the Colt was the only way to stop this thing. Was he right?” Sam asks.
Constantine watches the way that Dean’s lost interest in his food. There’s something to this story that he’s not getting. “It’s the safest way. Only real way your father was equipped to deal with it.”
“Meaning what exactly?” Sam asks.
“As a last resort, demons can be summoned to fight other demons. It’s dangerous though,” Constantine replies. He can feel them behind him. He wonders if Angela and Sam can see his ghosts or not.
Angela’s eyes widen with shock. “You’ve done that?”
Constantine doesn’t answer. “There may be another way though. Partly it depends on what this demon wants. Did your dad find anything out about that?”
Sam’s entire body pulls in on itself and he speaks so soft that Constantine has to strain to hear it. “It said that it had plans for me and the kids like me.”
Kids like me. That meant that all of the kids were like Sam. “Like what? All of you have flashes of the future? Doesn’t seem like too much of a threat there to me.”
“They’re not all like Sam. One was a telekinetic. There’s another who can make people do whatever he tells them,” Dean explains.
Constantine wishes he hadn’t eaten his burger now. The feeling in his stomach was only getting worse. He checks his watch. Eight pm. Midnite’s place should be open by now. “Okay then. Sam, you up for a ride?”
“Where are we going?” Dean asks.
“We are going nowhere. You and Angela are staying here. Sam and I are going to visit a friend.”
“No,” Dean says. “Look, we appreciate the help, but I’m not going to let you just take my brother. Bad enough you drove my car.”
John starts to argue, then waves his head. “Fine, I guess we’re all going. Good thing you have four seats.” Thankfully, the door test should keep Dean from getting into Midnite’s. Hopefully Angela will elect to stay with him.
The demon sniffs at the air to taste the ether. The game has changed. The boys have added a player to the game. Smelling again, it smiles. More than one player. This should be delicious.
Constantine’s familiar. A bane to their kind, but an ignorant one in this.
It really doesn’t matter though. The Colt’s out of the game and there’s nothing else left on Earth with the power to hurt it. At least, not in it’s true form. Losing meatsacks can be disorienting and a hassle, but it only slows him.
The plans in motion and nothing’s going to stop it. Certainly not an exorcist with a new lease on his soul that’s lost the taste for no holds bar fighting.
Chapter 3: Can You See It?
The ride to Midnite’s was spent listening to Constantine expound on the rules of the nightclub.
From the sound of it, it’s nowhere Dean wants to be and he definitely doesn’t want to let Sam walk in there. At least not without at least five shotguns full of rock salt and silver. “So let me see if I’ve got this straight. This place is full of demons –“
“Half-breed demons,” Constantine corrects.
“Demons doing whatever they like and we’re just supposed to walk past them” Dean finishes.
“Papa Midnite’s club is neutral ground, as is he. No matter what any half-breed in there says to me, I’ve never been tempted to break the rules. Midnite isn’t a man you want to cross,” Constantine says. “Not that you’ll have to worry about it.”
“What do you mean by that?” Dean demands.
In the rearview mirror, Dean sees Constantine smirk. “If you can get in, follow the rules.” No matter how much Sam and Dean badgered him, Constantine refuses to elaborate. Angela just sits silently beside him.
To Dean, the outside of the nightclub appears like any other any big city in America. Slightly run down neighborhood, neon signs on the outside, stip joints a couple of doors away, and bouncer as soon as you enter the door.
Except this bouncer is holding up a card.
“A rabbit on a bicycle,” Constantine says. The large, towering bouncer puts the card down and opens the velvet rope for him to enter before locking it behind him.
“I don’t know if I can do this,” Sam whispers to Dean.
“It’s the only way to get in,” Constantine says from where he’s waiting.
Dean doesn’t particularly want Sam to do this either, but Constantine seems to think this Midnite might have some insight on how to kill the demon. “Go ahead, we’ll never know till you try.”
“But Dean,” Sam starts. Dean just pushes him forward.
The bouncer holds up a card and Dean holds his breath.
Sam squints his eyes and pauses for what seems like ten minutes. “A bear on a mountain?” The bouncer puts the card down and opens the rope.
Constantine’s grinning like an idiot as he leans on the wall and Dean’s aware of the fact that a line is growing behind them. He looks over at Angela, but she’s silent with her arms crossed. No help there.
Dean looks at the waiting card and then at his brother. It’s stupid, but what the hell. Worst that will happen is he sits out here chewing on his nails and waiting for Sammy. “Frogs on a park bench,” Dean says in his bullshit voice.
He almost falls over when the guy opens the velvet rope one more time. He smirks when he sees that Constantine has lost a bit of balance too.
“Purple chickens on a see-saw,” Angela adds and then she too is in line following Constantine through the club.
Constantine had tried to prepare them. Dean’s half convinced that the man either drugged him or he has serious brain damage. He’s seen a lot of things in his life, but this is unreal. The music and lights and disco balls are like any other club, but everything else just makes his skin crawl. Especially when he accidentally meets the eyes of some of the other patrons. Yellow, red, ice blue. Smiles full of fangs. Drinks of the color red that they have to be blood. Or at least contain blood. What he hopes are orgies on tables.
It’s not long before Dean glues his eyes to the back of his brother’s coats just to preserve his own sanity. It takes a lot of strength to not reach out and grab onto it for dear life.
A door opens and the cacophony of music (and screams) dies away. Dean savors the silence and the feel of his skin settling back into its proper places before he looks around. The room (office? Den?) is decorated in dark colors and wood. A slim black man is dressed in a loud shirt and brown suede that reminds Dean of the disco era. When he stands in greeting, Dean revises his opinion. He exudes an aura of power that is matched by his muscled physique. Suddenly, Constantine’s advice to follow this man’s rules seems like a good idea.
“John, what brings you by unannounced?” the man asks, a light accent that Dean can’t quite place. It’s different than the few Hatian voodoo priests he’s met.
“We’ve got a slight problem, Midnite,” Constantine answers.
Midnite chuckles deeply. “You always have problems, friend. Maybe if you were nicer to people. Aren’t you going to introduce your guests?”
“Sam and Dean Winchester,” Constantine answers. Dean notices that he doesn’t bother to introduce the lady cop. Looking at her, she either doesn’t mind the omission or she’s been here before.
The witch doctor doesn’t react at all upon hearing their names and just waits for Constantine to continue. “Sam’s girlfriend died a year ago. Murdered by a demon. Except Sariel says the soul got misplaced.”
“Demons aren’t allowed up here, John, and souls don’t get lost. Maybe she wasn’t entirely truthful with the young man about her life,” Midnite answers.
Dean’s getting impatient. “It’s a demon alright. Has the possession part down full. We’ve killed a couple of its kids, but the smoky bastard left it’s host the one time we cornered it.” He doesn’t mention that it had been in Dad at the time.
Midnite focuses in on Dean then. “What’s he even doing in here?”
Constantine looks at Dean and then looks over at Sam. “I’m pretty sure it’s his brother’s doing. That or I’m really losing my touch.”
“Come here, boy,” Midnite says, gesturing to Sam. Dean reaches out to stop him, but Constantine knocks his arm down as Sam steps forward. When Midnite stands, Dean’s surprised to see that he’s just as tall as his brother. He grabs Sam’s chin and then whispers a few words that Dean can’t hear.
After what feel like a few skipped heartbeats, Sam falls down to one knee gasping and Midnite stumbles back into the table. Ignoring Midnite, after all, he can always kill the guy later if he’s hurt Sam, Dean’s immediately at Sam’s side. His gut clenches when he realizes that Sam’s sobbing soundlessly.
Peripherally, he’s aware of Angela kneeling down at his side while Constantine helps Midnite to his chair.
“You should find some new friends to take your problems to, John,” Midnite says. “There’s whiskey in that cabinet, Detective Dodson. I think we could all do with a shot.”
“Oh, God, Dean. It’s my fault. I should have stopped it,” Sam gasps. “Jesse was so good, she doesn’t deserve this.”
Silence fills the room as Angela pours a glass of whiskey and hands it to Dean. Sam’s still pretty incoherent, but between his emotions and previous injuries, Dean manages to get him to drink the liquor without too much force. He stays at Sam’s side, but locks a glare on Midnite. “What did you do to my brother, asshole?”
Midnite laughs out loud at him. “Boy’s almost as insolent as you were at that age, John.”
Constantine shoots Dean a look before turning his attention back to Midnite. “What happened?”
“He’s not like you or your friend, for one. His gift,” Midnite pauses. “I don’t know exactly what it is. But I can feel that thing you said was a demon through it.”
“Sam’s not evil,” Dean protests.
Midnite shakes his head. “I didn’t say that. But he’s not natural either. This thing that’s plagued your family, it knows exactly where you are all the time. I don’t think it goes any further than that – it can’t control him or see through him. At least not yet.”
“The Colt’s gone. Got any specifics on this thing so I know how to fight it?” Constantine asks.
Midnite shakes his head. “The Colt’s not gone. Is it, Dean?”
Constantine looks at Dean. “What does he mean?”
Sam’s so ready to take the blame for everything, but there’s no one to blame for this but himself. If he’d been stronger, or if he’d given into the Reaper earlier, everything might be different. “The wreck I told you about. I was dying. Dad gave the Colt to the demon in exchange for my life.” The words taste just as bitter coming out as they have echoing through his skull for months.
“Sounds like it’s as good as gone then,“ Constantine says after a moment. “I still need to know how to fight this thing, Midnite.”
“Without its name, or the Colt, there’s only one way,” Midnite says.
“Solomon’s Ring has been missing for a long time,” Constantine replies.
Angela speaks up for the first time. “Solomon’s Ring, but that’s just a story.”
“You see and hear demons and angels every day, Angela. Do you really want to debate which Bible stories are true or not?” Constantine asks. “You had one of Solomon’s Keys in your trunk. I don’t suppose –“
Dean cuts him off. “I think if Bobby had found the ring, he’d of mentioned it.”
Midnite walks over to the door. “Sorry I couldn’t be more help, John. Now I think you’d better get your friend out of here before the place fills up too much. No sense in attracting new problems,” he says with wave in the direction of Sam.
Personally, it’s the first good idea that Dean’s heard all night. “Come, little brother. Remember to do all your vomiting BEFORE you get in my car.”
They drop Angela off at her own car and then return to Constantine’s apartment. Dean would prefer to hightail it out of the city, but Sam’s not in any shape to be traveling tonight. If he’s truthful, Dean’s not either.
Still, once he gets Sam settled, Dean joins Constantine in the kitchen. “You know something that you aren’t sharing.”
“Seems to me that we’re all doing that.”
“Well, now you know everything. So spill.”
Constantine snorts. “Yeah, but not because you’ve told me anything. Your dad gave more than just the Colt in return for your life, didn’t he?”
Dean clenches his fists. It would be so easy to swing, but there’s still the chance that this asshole might know something that will help. “Yeah. So?”
“Your Dad was a fool, but not an idiot. Hold on,” Constantine says firmly when Dean takes a step forward. “I don’t mean that as an insult. Just stating that facts. Anyone who gets involved in this business is one kind of a fool or another. I doubt he handed the gun and his soul over without making sure the deal was done. Without talking to both of you.”
“Or maybe he didn’t tell both of you. Maybe he just told you, the eldest, the strongest?” Constantine suggests.
Dean closes his eyes and clenches his teeth. He’s been trying to tell himself that those words were all a lie. Another planned deception by that evil bastard to torture his family. Demons lie. It’s what they are. What they do.
“What did he say, Dean?”
“It’s not true!”
“What did he say?”
The words echo in his head so much that he doesn’t even realize he’s said them out loud until Constantine curses. “Fuck. Well, that explains the link Midnite felt.”
“It’s not true,” Dean insists.
Constantine just turns away and looks out the window over the city street. “Half-breeds exist all over this world. How do you think they came to be, Dean?”
“Sam’s not a demon.”
“I didn’t say he was. But he’s not completely human. It doesn’t matter, though. He’s not evil.”
“He’s not a demon.”
Constantine turns back and drops into a chair. He looks at the bottle of whiskey, but he doesn’t pour any more drinks. “The others like Sam. Have you met any of them?”
Dean doesn’t like where this is going. “Yeah.” Constantine doesn’t say anything else, he just waits. “Max was this telekinetic. Completely frakked up by his abusive parents.”
“Again, I’m getting that there’s more to this story than you’re telling me.”
“He was fixing to kill me. Sam stopped him.” Dean swallows. “And his mom died the same way ours did. Then there were these twins a couple months back. Were split up in the foster care system, but both had some Obi-wan power of compulsion thing. Except one went Vader and the other went Luke. After killing a lot of people, Luke killed Vader, just like the movie.”
Telling it, Dean realizes what was missing. Yeah, the mothers were all killed by the same yellow eyed demon, but the kids. What they did, they did it all on their own. No clouds of black smoke after anyone died. Just plain human deaths. “They died though. They weren’t demons,” he insists.
“I can’t make you believe it, Dean. But you know the stories as well as I do. Since the dawn of man, there’s stories of women ravaged by a mysterious night visitor. Giving birth to something other than human. You’re dad wasn’t lying. Sam’s your brother. But he wasn’t your father’s son. Or maybe he is, but not entirely.”
Constantine leaves then. Dean stares out the window and wonders how much more night is left. Somehow, he doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to sleep tonight. Hell, maybe never again.
She finds him easily, just where the shadows said he’d be. He’s sleeping. He usually is when she comes to him. Occasionally she’ll follow during the day and haunt his vision, but at night it’s easier. He can’t get away from her in his dreams.
Jesse. I’ve missed you so much. Don’t ever leave me again.
Never, she says. There’s a way we can be together always. Just tell me that’s what you want.
It’s all I’ve ever wanted, sweetheart. Us. Together forever. Whatever it takes.
I won’t let you forget that this is what you wanted, Sam. Everything I do, I do it for you.
As dawn casts its light over LA, she leaves him then. In the end, they’ll be together. She’ll get to watch his punishment for all eternity. It’s only what he deserves for letting her die, after all.
Chapter 4: You Knew Better
Constantine wakes to the same generalized anxiety that he went to bed with. This whole situation is bad with a capital B, but now it’s in his town and so it’s his problem. Things would be easier if he thought that maybe he could end it before it started by killing Sam, but well, that’s a bad idea for a number of reasons. One, it would probably mean killing Dean as well. Two, he’s not really sure that Sam wouldn’t count as human enough to damn him to hell again if Constantine did kill the boy.
Well, eliminating options is what formulating a battle plan is all about.
Both Winchesters have at least recovered energy if not health when they start moving around. Coffee is shared with words, but Constantine can feel Dean’s glare on him the entire time.
Which only serves to remind Constantine of last night’s puzzle when Dean managed to read the card. One more thing to keep an eye on.
He’s alone in the kitchen when someone knocks on the front door. Opening it to find Angela on the other side is unsurprising. He leaves the door open and walks away, fully expecting she’ll follow.
His sense of unease and anxiety ratchet up a notch when he turns and she’s still on the opposite side of the threshold. “A report came in from another precinct that matched the description of Sam’s girlfriend.”
“Which you recognized how?” Constantine asks. “Oh, right, you saw the same vision. They’re almost ready I think.”
She shakes her head. “Your apartment is a tad crowded with four. I’ll wait downstairs in my car and then drive us all to the sighting.”
“Christo,<
deathisyourart wants to see this at least. Not sure what other interest there may be since I know a ton of people are WIP-phobes, and I make no guarantees about ever really going back to finished this. Basically this is about 8500 words that I started writing S2 hiatus. poisontaster encouraged me like crazy and gave me some feedback (if I'm not mistaken). Also, cassiee I believe. Eventually it got Kripked enough that I'd have to fix a ton of things that I shelved it and never really got back to.....Now, I'm not sure if I will or not. Anyway, hope someone enjoys it.rating: teen
summary: Sam and Dean have trouble on a hunt and meet an unlikely ally. Winchester luck ensues.
spoilers: Early SPN s2 spoilers, beyond that, uncertain. A bit of a mix of Constantine movie and some of the Constantine comic book verses.
Disclaimer: None of the characters belong to me.
Chapter 1: Any Brawl You Walk Away From
The gun is on the floor across the room where the beast kicked it hours earlier. Or more likely minutes. They tended to drag out when some undead freak was using your ribs as a soccer ball. Dean was willing to bet Einstein didn’t factor pain into his theory of relativity. Dean’d ask Sammy, but Sam was currently sleeping off the steel post to the forehead that this thing had dealt out when they first entered the abandoned office building.
A growl tells Dean that the beasty has tired of Kick the Hunter. “An overrated game, I always did say,” Dean forces out past the pain of broken ribs and bruised muscles. The lack of answering repartee from Sam worries him, but he can’t let that throw him off his game. Not if we’re going to get out of this alive.
Dean grabs his knife from his ankle sheath just as the beast picks him up. Somehow he manages to keep hold of the knife as he thrown across the room and bounces off the cheesing wood paneling that serves for walls. As his face meets the threadbare adobe colored carpeting, Dean has time to be thankful that at least the abandoned office building was devoid of cubicles. He hates it when he gets plastic shards embedded in his back.
Glancing over his shoulder, he spots the beast slowly stomping towards him.
Wincing, Dean struggles to his knees and prepares to face the beast. Behind it, he can see through the front office window and the deserted LA street beyond it. And red lights… he shakes his head. That couldn’t be right. It ain’t Christmas. Concussions usually don’t make him see colored lights, but his head did bounce off the wall pretty hard. Opening and closing his eyes, he looks again to see the beast closing in steadily, but warily, and through the window, he now sees red and blue police lights flashing from the dash of a black SUV.
Great, now he has to find a way to get him and Sam out of this alive and try to watch out for a civilian as well. Could this night possibly get any worse?
The beast is close enough for Dean to feint throwing the knife. When it dodges, he scrambles across the room towards his gun. He almost makes it when the thing’s foot (or fist, did it matter? Both hurt like hell. He’d swear to that on any book you put in front of him) connects squarely with Dean’s hip causing him to fall and skid the rest of the way to the gun. And past it until his head cracks once more on the uglified wood paneling that seems to be required interior decoration by every soul sucking corporation in America.
Fumbling through the random darkness, bright lights, and waves of dizziness for the gun, he hears an unmistakeable sound. He’s only heard once before in his entire hunting career - Dragon’s Breath. Way too expensive for the brand of hunting that the Winchester’s do (and generally overkill), but very effective on just about every damn demon or evil fiend out there.
The beast wails and through the fuzziness of his concussed vision, Dean smiles when it lights up in blue flames and thrashes around the room in its death throes. Even as his brain begins saying how bad a flaming body moving around a room decorated with cheap wood paneling is.
His brain shuts up pretty quickly when Dean sees the flame thrower (metal – probably silver, and gold, or brass. Either way, very pawnable) pointed directly at him. He drops his gun and raises his hands.
At that point, his body decides it’s had enough and that if this day won’t stop going wrong, it’s going to end it for him by passing out in a heap. Yep, that’s it. Unconscious heap. Cause there’s no way in hell he’ll admit to fainting at the sight of the pissed off woman holding the flame thrower. None at all.
“And you brought them here, why?” a man asks.
“They’re human. If I took them to a hospital, I’d have to come up with an explanation for their condition. The cause of which is currently burning down an abandoned building and wouldn’t have fit in a prison cell anyway,” a woman answers. “I figured you must have some connections to get them fixed up.”
Instincts tell Dean to stay still even if every fiber of his being wants to check on his little brother. At least from what the couple are saying, he assumes the chick had rescued his brother as well. Better have.
“Doesn’t mean much. They could have raised the thing you burned. Any clue what it was or did you shoot first?”
“It ate about a dozen homeless before I got a lead on its lair. I shot first. If they raised it, they didn’t have any control. It was attacking them when I got there.”
“When humans make deals with the devil, they usually end up bit, Angela.”
“They’re awake.”
Busted.
“I know. I wanted to see how long they’d play dead.”
Dean opens his eyes even as his hands check for any one of his many weapons. He comes up empty, not even the knife is left in the back of his pants.
A man in a black suit jacket, white shirt, and black tie stands above him with a nasty gun aimed directly at his head. Wonder who his supplier is and how much one of those beauties cost, Dean wonders as he focuses on the gun. The dude tilts his head and Dean looks over to see all of his weapons, and Sam’s from the looks of it, piled well out of reach on a cheap kitchen table.
Dean spots Sam prone, but slowly moving, on the floor on the other side of the rather bare room. Bare except for the incantations carved into the wood around the windowsills, the big ass cross over what Dean figures is the front door, and the two people holding weapons on them both. The chick has a normal gun. Police issued, he guesses as he remembers the lights from earlier. You had to wonder if things could get any worse, didn’t you, idiot?
“Dean, what’s going on?” Sam asks in a loopy voice.
“Just making friends with the nice man holding the kickass gun,” Dean answers. He knows from experience that Sam’s rolling his eyes.
“So what were you two boys doing in that building? Make a wrong turn looking for a rave?” the man asks.
“Originally? A family member hired us after their deranged cousin went missing. Which led us to look into that rash of homeless murders for fear that he’d been a victim. After that, getting thoroughly thrashed for our trouble until your friend showed up. Angela, is it? Thanks,” Dean said.
“He’s lying,” Angela says
“Really? You’re finely honed psychic ability inform you of that?” the man replies.
Psychic. A joke, surely. There’s no way that Dean has bad enough luck to stumble across a psychic when he already has one for a brother.
“No, my many years of interrogating perps on the job, Constantine.”
Dean looks over at Sam to see his brother’s wide eyes staring back in shock.
“Constantine? The John Constantine?” Sam asks with more than a little awe in his voice. Little brother’s head wasn’t too shook up if he remembered that. Course, it would be hard to forget. Bobby used to love to tell them stories about the famed John Constantine when they were younger.
“Who’s asking?” Constantine asks, readjusting his aim on Dean.
Dean raises his hands again. “Whoah, whoah, whoah. No one bad. We’re on your side.”
“I don’t have a side,” Constantine growls out in a low voice.
“So you don’t enjoy blasting demons back to hell?” Sam asks.
“Demons, angels, it really makes no difference to me,” Constantine answers, but he does lower the gun to his side.
Dean takes the opportunity to push up into a sitting position against the wall. “Glad you aren’t picky. I hope you don’t include humans in that because we kinda enjoy being alive.”
Sam grunts. “Speak for yourself. I think that thing broke my arm.”
“Again?” Dean shakes his head. “I keep telling you to tuck and roll, bro.”
Angela holsters her gun. “Well, I definitely brought them to the right place. They’re just as insane as you are.”
--> could do this scene from sam's pov and then the next from john's still w/ revelation about angela seeing the vision? No interrupts flow too much. Maybe alternate chapters back and forth from dean to sam?
It’s a couple of hours later, though Dean won’t put a firm figure on it given the size of his concussion and the really nice whiskey that Constantine is sharing for pain relief. Constantine is currently wrapping Sam’s wrist up after deciding it probably isn’t broken (while it isn’t bending oddly, it’s not bending without Sam screaming either. But they really don’t have the cash for a hospital visit at the moment, and most of their IDs are currently parked on a lot with a burning building on the other side of LA).
“So how do you know John?” the lady cop asks.
“I wouldn’t mind knowing that myself,” Constantine says.
Sam, much loopier from the whiskey and aspirin that Constantine had poured down his throat, answers. “Growing up, Bobby used to tell us all sorts of stories about you and Pastor Jim. Said the three of you cut quite a path together back in the day.”
“Bobby Singer?” Constantine asks with a frown. “Thought he went into the wrecking business.”
Dean tops off his glass of whiskey as he answers. “He did. Still collects a lot of occult books and gives us a discount on car repairs. By the way, my car gets towed, you are so paying to get it out,” he tells Angela.
She rolls her eyes at him and starts to say something, but pauses and puts a hand to her head. At the same time, Sam yells and falls to the floor in classic vision mode.
“What the hell?” Constantine says as he catches Angela before she falls to the floor. Dean crosses the room where his brother is writhing beside the stained bed he was lying on.
“Jess. Dean, I saw Jess,” Sam croaks out before passing out.
“A little help here?” Dean asks. Constantine leads Angela into the little kitchen and gets her situated at the table before coming to help lift Sam back on the bed.
“That happen often?”
“More than I like,” Dean says. “Pretty stupid for the psychic friends network to make him helpless while yakking about the future in my opinion. What about her?”
“I’m right here,” Angela says. “And I’m fine.”
“So what? Bleedover from the boy then?” Constantine asks.
“I don’t know, John. You tell me. I haven’t been doing this very long,” Angela answers. “God, my head is killing me though.”
“Wait, she really is a psychic?” Dean asks
“Psychic enough to almost create hell on Earth,” Constantine says, earning a glare from Angela. “His visions bring you to LA?”
Dean shakes his head. “We really were hired by a loon’s family.”
Constantine pours a glass of whiskey. “So what’d he see. Sounded like he said a name.”
Yeah, a name. Sam’d been going on about catching glimpses of Jess in dirty gas station mirrors and unwashed windows for months. Dean had hoped that giving his brother things to hunt and a goal (the death of the demon that killed Mom, Jess, and now Dad) would be enough to help Sam through the grief. Ever since Ellicot possessed him in the asylum though, he’d been seeing Jess (and occasionally other dead people). Dean had no intention of telling Constantine his brother was slowly cracking up.
“Jess,” Angela states.
“What?” Dean asks, playing dumb. There’s no way. As far as Dean can tell, there’s only one good thing about Sam’s visions, the thrashing generally keeps bystanders from hearing what he might whimper.
Angela takes Constantine’s glass from him and drinks it before answering. “Jess, he called her Jess. At least I think we were seeing the same thing. He was there. They both were. The girl was about to kill you,” Angela says as she looks at Dean. “He was pleading with her not to and he called her Jess. And sweetheart.”
Dean looks back over at his unconscious brother. Looks like Sammy had started keeping secrets.
Dean pretends not to notice when Constantine tells Angela that she should leave. He waits till they step outside the apartment before grabbing his glass (always have an alibi if you’re eavesdropping, Dean-o) and following them.
“You’d think you’d want the person who just gave you a lead on the Dynamic Duo in there to stick around,” Angela says. Dean’s glad to see that the door’s been left open a crack.
“I’ve told you before, it’s not healthy to around me.”
“I can take care of myself, John.”
“Good, because I can’t. Do me a favor and see if you can get their car towed over here or something.”
Dean can pretty much imagine the look Angela is giving Constantine right now. He’s gotten that look a time or two from Sam. Sam had given Dad that look an awful lot.
“At least tell me what’s going on,” Angela pleads.
A slight thud and plaster drifting down from the ceiling tells Dean that Constantine just punched the wall.
“If they’re who I think they are, you’re better off not knowing. In fact, you’d be better off taking a vacation to the other side of the world right about now.”
“If that’s the case, why aren’t you telling them to get lost.”
“I gotta satisfy my death wish somehow now that I don’t smoke. The car, Angela. And try to make sure no one searches it, or it’ll never get it released.”
Creaking floorboards send Dean fleeing to the kitchen sink to fill his glass with water.
“Hear enough?” Constantine asks.
Dean’s good at lying generally. Used to get away with it to pretty much everyone except Dad and Pastor Jim. Something tells him that Constantine falls into that same category, except, well, you know, alive.
“You seem to know what’s going on here. Mind clueing a brother in?”
Constantine drops into the kitchen chair and rubs his face. “God, I’d kill for a cigarette.” He looks over at the bed. “He still out?” When Dean nods, Constantine grabs the bottle of whiskey and takes a swig. “I don’t know all of it, but knowing that your last name is Winchester is enough.”
“How?”
“John Winchester is the only man I know that would leave his kids with either Murphy or Singer. Most parents would rather let Dick Cheney play baby sitter than those two.”
“There’s nothing wrong with –“
“Son, I didn’t say there was. Most parents avoid our ilk instinctually.”
Dean avoids the implications of that reasoning as he sips his water while leaning on the sink. “You still haven’t said what you think is going on.”
“And I won’t until we hear what your brother has to say. In the meantime, the salt is in the cabinet behind you. Won’t hurt to line the doors and windows.”
Looking at the protective runes and scriptures carved into the door frame and window sills is when Dean starts to get goose bumps. Salt over the thresholds is like pouring water over a gas stove once the gas main has been turned off. If anything demonic can come uninvited through the barriers already there, salt sure as hell isn’t going to stop them.
Busy work has always made Dean more nervous than just plain waiting.
She can feel him. He feels the same even though she’s altered. She still has the memories though, the taste of love. Now it tastes bitter. Betrayed. Left out.
“His fault,” the darkness whispers. She agrees. She’s not entirely sure why it took her so long to do so.
It doesn’t matter though. He’ll pay for what he did. She’s got the perfect punishment in mind too.
“Such a good girl,” the voices whisper. She basks in the praise. “We’ll never leave you.”
Chapter 2: Nobody’s Perfect
Constantine keeps his promise and remains silent until Sam wakes up. Dean spends that hour thoroughly bored. At least at a motel, he’d have cable to watch while he cleaned his guns and knives (or at least the ones that they have on them. Hopefully Angela does manage to rescue the Impala). Here, he’s stuck with grainy network channels. Worse, it’s daytime TV. He’s half convinced that Dr. Phil is the spawn of Satan.
“Eung..Dean?”
“Right here, Sammy. Here,” he instructs as he places two painkillers in Sam’s palm. After digging through Sam’s coat and finding the mostly empty bottle, Dean’s convinced that Sam’s been hiding his visions recently.
Sam dry swallows the pills before squinting his eyes open and looking around the room. “Constantine’s. Lady cop saved our butts and brought us here before you got a call from the Psychic Friends Network,” Dean summarizes. That makes Sam sit up fast and grab Dean painfully on two of his many bruises.
“Jess. I saw Jess. We’ve got to get to her.”
“Whoa, sport,” Dean says. Worry and fear make the whiskey in his stomach sour. “We don’t have to go anywhere. Jess is dead.” Sam’s face crumbles.
“What did you see?” Constantine asks.
“No, he’s right, it must’ve been the concussion,” Sam says as he sinks back onto the bed.
“Humor me,” Constantine dryly insists.
Sam looks from Dean to Constantine and back again before repeating what Angela had said earlier. “It was Jess. She was on a playground. She was so happy. And then she had Dean and was going to kill him. It doesn’t make any sense. It had to be the concussion.”
“And Jess, how did she die?” Constantine asks.
Sam jumps off the bed and sprints in the direction of the toilet. Dean winces. The painkillers probably didn’t mix too well with the earlier aspirin and whiskey. “Same way as our mother did,” Dean answers.
Constantine looks towards the bathroom. “He was there for that one too, wasn’t he?”
“We both were. Carried him out of the first one and dragged him out when Jess was burning up a year ago. If you’ve got an epiphany to share with us about this damn demon, speak up.”
“Did you see her body?”
“I was four, no, I didn’t see my mother’s body.”
“He means Jess,” Sam answers from where he’s leaning against the door frame of the bathroom. “No, there was nothing left.”
“What’s your dad have to say about all this?” Constantine asks.
Dean’s getting pissed at all the questions. “Nothing. He died of a heart attack just after we all survived being run over by a demon driven semi.”
That news shocks Constantine silent for a few seconds. “So he never got the Colt?”
Dean glances over at Sam, but so far, his brother is winning the contest of wills with gravity. “No, we found it. Five bullets, one massive car crash, an out of body experience, and our dad dying, it kinda got –“
“Lost,” Sam finishes.
“Lost? You just lost one of the most powerful and effective weapons against demons,” Constantine restates.
“Yeah, that about covers it,” Dean replies. “It wasn’t the finest moment in Winchester hunting history.”
Constantine rubs his face and then begins to pace between the bedroom and kitchen. “Your girlfriend - what was her full name?”
“Jessica Moore. Why?” Sam answers.
Constantine turns and heads for the apartment door. “Stay here, I’ll be back.”
“If you’re going after that demon, or information on it, we’re coming with you,” Sam says, as he stumbles away from the bathroom.
“No, you’re not. Both of you can barely stand and you’ll only draw more unwanted attention to me than normal. Stay here, don’t invite anyone or anything in. Understand?” Constantine’s glare reminds Dean a lot of Missouri. Feels like they both can look right through you and see the mischief you’re planning.
“We’re not newbies, Constantine. We’ve been doing this since we could walk,” Dean answers.
“No, you’ve been chasing werewolves and poltergeists since you were kids. This is demons, as in the big leagues. I told your father he was an idiot to go after this thing with anything less than magic and creatures of his own, but he didn’t want to get his soul, or yours I suspect, dirty. If you aren’t going to do what I say, get the fuck out of my town before you get anyone I know hurt.”
With that, Constantine slams the door.
Constantine walks around the block to a diner to get a cup of coffee. After paying, he pulls out his cell phone to call Angela.
Dodson.
“It’s Constantine. Have you got their car yet?”
I just got to the impound lot, John. No, I don’t have it yet.
“When you do, could you stop by Joe’s Diner? I want to have a look at it before I go asking stupid questions from folks that don’t like me.”
What happened to get the hell out of town?
“Honestly, that still applies. But drop off the car here before you leave on vacation.”
He isn’t surprised when she hangs up on him. He knows she hates being kept out of the loop, but he hopes that for once she’ll take his advice. Hell, he just might knock her out and put in a box addressed to Bora Bora if she doesn’t. John Winchester always did give him the willies, and he’s not getting any warm fuzzy feelings off his two boys.
It takes about an hour before Angela shows up with the car. Constantine whistles out loud when he sees it. He’s not normally someone who cares much about cars, but even he can appreciate the beauty that is the 1967 Chevrolet Impala. In black to boot.
“Park it in the alley,” Constantine tells her when she pulls to the curb outside the diner.
“Okay, so what’s so special about the car? Is it possessed?”
Constantine just rolls his eyes. “Keys?”
When he pops the trunk, the space is much smaller than should be in a car this size. He hands two bags of close and a large container of salt to Angela and then starts feeling around. Soon his hand hits the hidden switch and the false bottom rises.
“Holy shit. No wonder they wanted it back so fast.”
Constantine nods in agreement. The trunk holds a large array (even by his standards) of shotguns, pistols, and rifles, plus knives, stakes, chains, gas cans filled with…yep, holy water, and tools for smelting bullets.
“Should be a journal in here somewhere. John Winchester always carried a ratty old journal,” he mumbles. Finally, he goes around and gets in the car. He finds the journal peeking out from under the passenger side seat.
Flipping through it, he finds information on all the normal things that hunters would go after: succubi, werewolves, ghosts, and the like. A page here and there describes other odd fires that Winchester had followed up on.
The wind blows just right through the car and causes him to shiver. It’s been oddly cold for April in LA. Not enough to be quite out of the norm, but enough that even with his suit jacket he gets the chills now and again. From the way that Angela’s rubbing her hands together, she’s feeling the temperature as well.
“I should let you get back to work,” Constantine says. “Thanks for bringing the car over.”
She raises an eyebrow. “Well, I did what you said and took some vacation. So I can drive you wherever you need to go.”
“I was dead serious about what I said before, Angela. This isn’t safe. Especially with your abilities.”
She just crosses her arms. “Abilities you have as well. And that kid in there. I can help.”
“That kid has been dealing with this stuff almost since he was born. You’ve been doing it a few years. These are demons, we’re talking about.”
“I thought you said only half-breeds could get onto our plane.”
He gets out and shuts the Impala’s trunk. “Technically, that’s true, but there’s always a loophole. I’m not sure what this thing is, but from what I’ve heard, it’s not a normal half-breed.” With that, he pulls out his wallet and gives Angela twenty dollars.
“What’s this for? Supplies?”
He shakes his head and gets into the car. “Cab fare,” he tells her as he slams the door shut. He hates driving in LA, but he hates the idea of anyone else getting hurt because of him even more.
Sam's rather relieved once Constantine leaves.
Traffic in LA is a bitch, but Constantine manages to reach the planetarium of the Jesuit university just in time for the matinee. He’d of preferred not to have to sit through the entire show, but he resigns himself to an hour in a dark theater. Maybe it wouldn’t have been such a bad idea to have brought Angela along after all.
It takes a while for the room to clear after the show, but soon he’s alone with the speaker.
“You show a lot of nerve showing up after what happened to Gabriel,” the lecturer says.
Everyone’s still a little tetchy that Gabriel was made human for trying to bring Mamnon to Earth while Constantine actually managed to erase the sins damning him hell. He just shrugs it off. Half-breeds (angels or demons, makes no difference really. One just causes less trouble than the other) aren’t that different from humans – most have a chip on their shoulder about something. “Gabriel made a choice, Sariel. Are you going to hold that against me?” He looks up to where the heavens are still projected on the ceiling. “Still teaching man about how the progress of the heavens, eh?”
“What brings you here, Constantine?”
“I need information about a soul that passed about a year ago. Jessica Moore.”
Sariel’s eyes flash silver and his wings ruffle. It’s impossible for Constantine to tell if it’s in irritation or not. “Why?”
Constantine stands and walks down the aisle closer to the archangel. “Well, two people saw her die. And now two psychics have had visions that she’ll kill someone. It doesn’t add up.” Or it does. But he doesn’t like the sum he’s getting off of it.
“And you’re not telling me everything,” Sariel accuses.
“I don’t know everything.”
“Humility in the great John Constantine. Miracles do happen.” Sariel closes his eyes briefly. “She died, but her soul was, how would you say, redirected.”
“By the same thing that killed her?”
“I’m not the omniscient one, John. That’s all I know.”
Sariel’s news bothers John more than he’d like to admit. Not quite as bad as learning that Gabriel had decided to help Mamnon start hell on Earth early, but definitely not good. The notes in Winchester’s journal are as sketchy as he remembers, and it’s been five years since he’d talked with the man.
Even after twenty years of hunting, Winchester hadn’t been able to tell Constantine anything for him to be able to help. Well, beyond telling the Winchester patriarch that what he was fighting was big and bad and he’d have to get his hands dirty if he wanted to live through it. It looked like he’d ignored the advice.
Normals getting involved in exorcisms and hunting never ended well in Constantine’s opinions. Not that it ended all that well for those who weren’t normal. Seemed like Sam Winchester wasn’t quite normal. Which only peaked Constantine’s curiosity since there’d been no mention of that when John Winchester came calling.
“It killed your wife, but the three of you got out without a scratch?” Constantine asked, incredulous.
Winchester shrugged. “My arms were burned from trying to put the fire out and get to her, but yeah.” He slammed back his shot of whiskey and grabbed the bottle to pour another.
Constantine pushed his own glass away and lit up a cigarette. “In my experience, that’s not how these things operate. Your boys – they’re both…normal?”
“Normal as you can be growing up hunting these damn monsters.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, John, but I haven’t heard of anything like it. Sorry to hear that Murphy sent you all this way for nothing.”
“Wasn’t out of the way. There was another one in a town eighty miles south of here last week. Finished up and figured I might as well see if the legendary John Constantine had anything to offer.”
He’d been impressed with Winchester’s reputation, but dubious of his means. It was a miracle he and his sons had survived unscathed as long as they had.
That or there was a very patient demon with a very specific plan. Constantine cursed at the traffic impatiently. He had a feeling that the Winchester boys were running out of time.
When he arrives back at his apartment, Dean, Sam, and Angela are sitting at the wooden kitchen table eating fast food. “What the hell, I told you not to let anyone in!” Constantine almost yells.
The three exchange glances before Angela speaks up. “They needed food. Man can’t live on whiskey alone. There’s a bag in the fridge for you.”
Constantine pins Sam and Dean with a glare. “The next time I give you an order, you’d better follow it. If not, get the hell out of here right now. Your car’s parked in the alley.” He throws the keys to the Impala on the table and stalks to the bathroom.
When he comes back, all three are still there.
“So?” Dean asks, as if nothing just happened. “Find anything during your illegal search of my car?”
Constantine grabs the food from the fridge and sits down. After he chews a bite of the cold burger, he takes the journal out of his jacket pocket and tosses it on the table. “Since I saw your Dad five years ago, it doesn’t look like he’d learned anything new.”
Sam shakes his head. “That stuff’s all old. He took off on his own a while back and started to find a pattern.”
“What kind of pattern?”
“Weather changes, cattle mutilations, crop circles. That sort of thing,” Dean answers.
“All of these would happen during the weeks before another person was killed by fire. By the demon. And, they all happened on the day that an infant turned six months old,” Sam adds.
The bad feeling in Constantine’s stomach gets worse. There’d been an outbreak of some cattle virus at one of the stockyards outside the city in the paper this last weekend. And it was awful chilly in LA for April.
“We actually stopped one just before the wreck,” Dean says in a subdued voice. Suddenly, Constantine knows where quite a few of the bullets for the Colt must have gone.
“Dad said the Colt was the only way to stop this thing. Was he right?” Sam asks.
Constantine watches the way that Dean’s lost interest in his food. There’s something to this story that he’s not getting. “It’s the safest way. Only real way your father was equipped to deal with it.”
“Meaning what exactly?” Sam asks.
“As a last resort, demons can be summoned to fight other demons. It’s dangerous though,” Constantine replies. He can feel them behind him. He wonders if Angela and Sam can see his ghosts or not.
Angela’s eyes widen with shock. “You’ve done that?”
Constantine doesn’t answer. “There may be another way though. Partly it depends on what this demon wants. Did your dad find anything out about that?”
Sam’s entire body pulls in on itself and he speaks so soft that Constantine has to strain to hear it. “It said that it had plans for me and the kids like me.”
Kids like me. That meant that all of the kids were like Sam. “Like what? All of you have flashes of the future? Doesn’t seem like too much of a threat there to me.”
“They’re not all like Sam. One was a telekinetic. There’s another who can make people do whatever he tells them,” Dean explains.
Constantine wishes he hadn’t eaten his burger now. The feeling in his stomach was only getting worse. He checks his watch. Eight pm. Midnite’s place should be open by now. “Okay then. Sam, you up for a ride?”
“Where are we going?” Dean asks.
“We are going nowhere. You and Angela are staying here. Sam and I are going to visit a friend.”
“No,” Dean says. “Look, we appreciate the help, but I’m not going to let you just take my brother. Bad enough you drove my car.”
John starts to argue, then waves his head. “Fine, I guess we’re all going. Good thing you have four seats.” Thankfully, the door test should keep Dean from getting into Midnite’s. Hopefully Angela will elect to stay with him.
The demon sniffs at the air to taste the ether. The game has changed. The boys have added a player to the game. Smelling again, it smiles. More than one player. This should be delicious.
Constantine’s familiar. A bane to their kind, but an ignorant one in this.
It really doesn’t matter though. The Colt’s out of the game and there’s nothing else left on Earth with the power to hurt it. At least, not in it’s true form. Losing meatsacks can be disorienting and a hassle, but it only slows him.
The plans in motion and nothing’s going to stop it. Certainly not an exorcist with a new lease on his soul that’s lost the taste for no holds bar fighting.
Chapter 3: Can You See It?
The ride to Midnite’s was spent listening to Constantine expound on the rules of the nightclub.
From the sound of it, it’s nowhere Dean wants to be and he definitely doesn’t want to let Sam walk in there. At least not without at least five shotguns full of rock salt and silver. “So let me see if I’ve got this straight. This place is full of demons –“
“Half-breed demons,” Constantine corrects.
“Demons doing whatever they like and we’re just supposed to walk past them” Dean finishes.
“Papa Midnite’s club is neutral ground, as is he. No matter what any half-breed in there says to me, I’ve never been tempted to break the rules. Midnite isn’t a man you want to cross,” Constantine says. “Not that you’ll have to worry about it.”
“What do you mean by that?” Dean demands.
In the rearview mirror, Dean sees Constantine smirk. “If you can get in, follow the rules.” No matter how much Sam and Dean badgered him, Constantine refuses to elaborate. Angela just sits silently beside him.
To Dean, the outside of the nightclub appears like any other any big city in America. Slightly run down neighborhood, neon signs on the outside, stip joints a couple of doors away, and bouncer as soon as you enter the door.
Except this bouncer is holding up a card.
“A rabbit on a bicycle,” Constantine says. The large, towering bouncer puts the card down and opens the velvet rope for him to enter before locking it behind him.
“I don’t know if I can do this,” Sam whispers to Dean.
“It’s the only way to get in,” Constantine says from where he’s waiting.
Dean doesn’t particularly want Sam to do this either, but Constantine seems to think this Midnite might have some insight on how to kill the demon. “Go ahead, we’ll never know till you try.”
“But Dean,” Sam starts. Dean just pushes him forward.
The bouncer holds up a card and Dean holds his breath.
Sam squints his eyes and pauses for what seems like ten minutes. “A bear on a mountain?” The bouncer puts the card down and opens the rope.
Constantine’s grinning like an idiot as he leans on the wall and Dean’s aware of the fact that a line is growing behind them. He looks over at Angela, but she’s silent with her arms crossed. No help there.
Dean looks at the waiting card and then at his brother. It’s stupid, but what the hell. Worst that will happen is he sits out here chewing on his nails and waiting for Sammy. “Frogs on a park bench,” Dean says in his bullshit voice.
He almost falls over when the guy opens the velvet rope one more time. He smirks when he sees that Constantine has lost a bit of balance too.
“Purple chickens on a see-saw,” Angela adds and then she too is in line following Constantine through the club.
Constantine had tried to prepare them. Dean’s half convinced that the man either drugged him or he has serious brain damage. He’s seen a lot of things in his life, but this is unreal. The music and lights and disco balls are like any other club, but everything else just makes his skin crawl. Especially when he accidentally meets the eyes of some of the other patrons. Yellow, red, ice blue. Smiles full of fangs. Drinks of the color red that they have to be blood. Or at least contain blood. What he hopes are orgies on tables.
It’s not long before Dean glues his eyes to the back of his brother’s coats just to preserve his own sanity. It takes a lot of strength to not reach out and grab onto it for dear life.
A door opens and the cacophony of music (and screams) dies away. Dean savors the silence and the feel of his skin settling back into its proper places before he looks around. The room (office? Den?) is decorated in dark colors and wood. A slim black man is dressed in a loud shirt and brown suede that reminds Dean of the disco era. When he stands in greeting, Dean revises his opinion. He exudes an aura of power that is matched by his muscled physique. Suddenly, Constantine’s advice to follow this man’s rules seems like a good idea.
“John, what brings you by unannounced?” the man asks, a light accent that Dean can’t quite place. It’s different than the few Hatian voodoo priests he’s met.
“We’ve got a slight problem, Midnite,” Constantine answers.
Midnite chuckles deeply. “You always have problems, friend. Maybe if you were nicer to people. Aren’t you going to introduce your guests?”
“Sam and Dean Winchester,” Constantine answers. Dean notices that he doesn’t bother to introduce the lady cop. Looking at her, she either doesn’t mind the omission or she’s been here before.
The witch doctor doesn’t react at all upon hearing their names and just waits for Constantine to continue. “Sam’s girlfriend died a year ago. Murdered by a demon. Except Sariel says the soul got misplaced.”
“Demons aren’t allowed up here, John, and souls don’t get lost. Maybe she wasn’t entirely truthful with the young man about her life,” Midnite answers.
Dean’s getting impatient. “It’s a demon alright. Has the possession part down full. We’ve killed a couple of its kids, but the smoky bastard left it’s host the one time we cornered it.” He doesn’t mention that it had been in Dad at the time.
Midnite focuses in on Dean then. “What’s he even doing in here?”
Constantine looks at Dean and then looks over at Sam. “I’m pretty sure it’s his brother’s doing. That or I’m really losing my touch.”
“Come here, boy,” Midnite says, gesturing to Sam. Dean reaches out to stop him, but Constantine knocks his arm down as Sam steps forward. When Midnite stands, Dean’s surprised to see that he’s just as tall as his brother. He grabs Sam’s chin and then whispers a few words that Dean can’t hear.
After what feel like a few skipped heartbeats, Sam falls down to one knee gasping and Midnite stumbles back into the table. Ignoring Midnite, after all, he can always kill the guy later if he’s hurt Sam, Dean’s immediately at Sam’s side. His gut clenches when he realizes that Sam’s sobbing soundlessly.
Peripherally, he’s aware of Angela kneeling down at his side while Constantine helps Midnite to his chair.
“You should find some new friends to take your problems to, John,” Midnite says. “There’s whiskey in that cabinet, Detective Dodson. I think we could all do with a shot.”
“Oh, God, Dean. It’s my fault. I should have stopped it,” Sam gasps. “Jesse was so good, she doesn’t deserve this.”
Silence fills the room as Angela pours a glass of whiskey and hands it to Dean. Sam’s still pretty incoherent, but between his emotions and previous injuries, Dean manages to get him to drink the liquor without too much force. He stays at Sam’s side, but locks a glare on Midnite. “What did you do to my brother, asshole?”
Midnite laughs out loud at him. “Boy’s almost as insolent as you were at that age, John.”
Constantine shoots Dean a look before turning his attention back to Midnite. “What happened?”
“He’s not like you or your friend, for one. His gift,” Midnite pauses. “I don’t know exactly what it is. But I can feel that thing you said was a demon through it.”
“Sam’s not evil,” Dean protests.
Midnite shakes his head. “I didn’t say that. But he’s not natural either. This thing that’s plagued your family, it knows exactly where you are all the time. I don’t think it goes any further than that – it can’t control him or see through him. At least not yet.”
“The Colt’s gone. Got any specifics on this thing so I know how to fight it?” Constantine asks.
Midnite shakes his head. “The Colt’s not gone. Is it, Dean?”
Constantine looks at Dean. “What does he mean?”
Sam’s so ready to take the blame for everything, but there’s no one to blame for this but himself. If he’d been stronger, or if he’d given into the Reaper earlier, everything might be different. “The wreck I told you about. I was dying. Dad gave the Colt to the demon in exchange for my life.” The words taste just as bitter coming out as they have echoing through his skull for months.
“Sounds like it’s as good as gone then,“ Constantine says after a moment. “I still need to know how to fight this thing, Midnite.”
“Without its name, or the Colt, there’s only one way,” Midnite says.
“Solomon’s Ring has been missing for a long time,” Constantine replies.
Angela speaks up for the first time. “Solomon’s Ring, but that’s just a story.”
“You see and hear demons and angels every day, Angela. Do you really want to debate which Bible stories are true or not?” Constantine asks. “You had one of Solomon’s Keys in your trunk. I don’t suppose –“
Dean cuts him off. “I think if Bobby had found the ring, he’d of mentioned it.”
Midnite walks over to the door. “Sorry I couldn’t be more help, John. Now I think you’d better get your friend out of here before the place fills up too much. No sense in attracting new problems,” he says with wave in the direction of Sam.
Personally, it’s the first good idea that Dean’s heard all night. “Come, little brother. Remember to do all your vomiting BEFORE you get in my car.”
They drop Angela off at her own car and then return to Constantine’s apartment. Dean would prefer to hightail it out of the city, but Sam’s not in any shape to be traveling tonight. If he’s truthful, Dean’s not either.
Still, once he gets Sam settled, Dean joins Constantine in the kitchen. “You know something that you aren’t sharing.”
“Seems to me that we’re all doing that.”
“Well, now you know everything. So spill.”
Constantine snorts. “Yeah, but not because you’ve told me anything. Your dad gave more than just the Colt in return for your life, didn’t he?”
Dean clenches his fists. It would be so easy to swing, but there’s still the chance that this asshole might know something that will help. “Yeah. So?”
“Your Dad was a fool, but not an idiot. Hold on,” Constantine says firmly when Dean takes a step forward. “I don’t mean that as an insult. Just stating that facts. Anyone who gets involved in this business is one kind of a fool or another. I doubt he handed the gun and his soul over without making sure the deal was done. Without talking to both of you.”
Yeah, yeah, I’m just a little tired. Hey, son, would you mind getting me a cup of caffeine?”
…
Don’t be scared, Dean.
“Or maybe he didn’t tell both of you. Maybe he just told you, the eldest, the strongest?” Constantine suggests.
Dean closes his eyes and clenches his teeth. He’s been trying to tell himself that those words were all a lie. Another planned deception by that evil bastard to torture his family. Demons lie. It’s what they are. What they do.
“What did he say, Dean?”
“It’s not true!”
“What did he say?”
Don’t be afraid, Dean. He’s still your brother even if he isn’t my son. He’s human. He’s good. Protect Sammy, Dean. Whatever you do, protect your little brother.
The words echo in his head so much that he doesn’t even realize he’s said them out loud until Constantine curses. “Fuck. Well, that explains the link Midnite felt.”
“It’s not true,” Dean insists.
Constantine just turns away and looks out the window over the city street. “Half-breeds exist all over this world. How do you think they came to be, Dean?”
“Sam’s not a demon.”
“I didn’t say he was. But he’s not completely human. It doesn’t matter, though. He’s not evil.”
“He’s not a demon.”
Constantine turns back and drops into a chair. He looks at the bottle of whiskey, but he doesn’t pour any more drinks. “The others like Sam. Have you met any of them?”
Dean doesn’t like where this is going. “Yeah.” Constantine doesn’t say anything else, he just waits. “Max was this telekinetic. Completely frakked up by his abusive parents.”
“Again, I’m getting that there’s more to this story than you’re telling me.”
“He was fixing to kill me. Sam stopped him.” Dean swallows. “And his mom died the same way ours did. Then there were these twins a couple months back. Were split up in the foster care system, but both had some Obi-wan power of compulsion thing. Except one went Vader and the other went Luke. After killing a lot of people, Luke killed Vader, just like the movie.”
Telling it, Dean realizes what was missing. Yeah, the mothers were all killed by the same yellow eyed demon, but the kids. What they did, they did it all on their own. No clouds of black smoke after anyone died. Just plain human deaths. “They died though. They weren’t demons,” he insists.
“I can’t make you believe it, Dean. But you know the stories as well as I do. Since the dawn of man, there’s stories of women ravaged by a mysterious night visitor. Giving birth to something other than human. You’re dad wasn’t lying. Sam’s your brother. But he wasn’t your father’s son. Or maybe he is, but not entirely.”
Constantine leaves then. Dean stares out the window and wonders how much more night is left. Somehow, he doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to sleep tonight. Hell, maybe never again.
She finds him easily, just where the shadows said he’d be. He’s sleeping. He usually is when she comes to him. Occasionally she’ll follow during the day and haunt his vision, but at night it’s easier. He can’t get away from her in his dreams.
Jesse. I’ve missed you so much. Don’t ever leave me again.
Never, she says. There’s a way we can be together always. Just tell me that’s what you want.
It’s all I’ve ever wanted, sweetheart. Us. Together forever. Whatever it takes.
I won’t let you forget that this is what you wanted, Sam. Everything I do, I do it for you.
As dawn casts its light over LA, she leaves him then. In the end, they’ll be together. She’ll get to watch his punishment for all eternity. It’s only what he deserves for letting her die, after all.
Chapter 4: You Knew Better
Constantine wakes to the same generalized anxiety that he went to bed with. This whole situation is bad with a capital B, but now it’s in his town and so it’s his problem. Things would be easier if he thought that maybe he could end it before it started by killing Sam, but well, that’s a bad idea for a number of reasons. One, it would probably mean killing Dean as well. Two, he’s not really sure that Sam wouldn’t count as human enough to damn him to hell again if Constantine did kill the boy.
Well, eliminating options is what formulating a battle plan is all about.
Both Winchesters have at least recovered energy if not health when they start moving around. Coffee is shared with words, but Constantine can feel Dean’s glare on him the entire time.
Which only serves to remind Constantine of last night’s puzzle when Dean managed to read the card. One more thing to keep an eye on.
He’s alone in the kitchen when someone knocks on the front door. Opening it to find Angela on the other side is unsurprising. He leaves the door open and walks away, fully expecting she’ll follow.
His sense of unease and anxiety ratchet up a notch when he turns and she’s still on the opposite side of the threshold. “A report came in from another precinct that matched the description of Sam’s girlfriend.”
“Which you recognized how?” Constantine asks. “Oh, right, you saw the same vision. They’re almost ready I think.”
She shakes her head. “Your apartment is a tad crowded with four. I’ll wait downstairs in my car and then drive us all to the sighting.”
“Christo,<
[Error: Irreparable invalid markup ('<is [...] term?>') in entry. Owner must fix manually. Raw contents below.]
Okay, so <lj site="livejournal.com" user="deathisyourart"> wants to see this at least. Not sure what other interest there may be since I know a ton of people are WIP-phobes, and I make no guarantees about ever really going back to finished this. Basically this is about 8500 words that I started writing S2 hiatus. <lj site="livejournal.com" user="poisontaster"> encouraged me like crazy and gave me some feedback (if I'm not mistaken). Also, <lj site="livejournal.com" user="cassiee"> I believe. Eventually it got Kripked enough that I'd have to fix a ton of things that I shelved it and never really got back to.....Now, I'm not sure if I will or not. Anyway, hope someone enjoys it.
rating: teen
summary: Sam and Dean have trouble on a hunt and meet an unlikely ally. Winchester luck ensues.
spoilers: Early SPN s2 spoilers, beyond that, uncertain. A bit of a mix of Constantine movie and some of the Constantine comic book verses.
Disclaimer: None of the characters belong to me.
<hr>
<lj-cut text="and herein is the story.">
Chapter 1: Any Brawl You Walk Away From
The gun is on the floor across the room where the beast kicked it hours earlier. Or more likely minutes. They tended to drag out when some undead freak was using your ribs as a soccer ball. Dean was willing to bet Einstein didn’t factor pain into his theory of relativity. Dean’d ask Sammy, but Sam was currently sleeping off the steel post to the forehead that this <i>thing</i> had dealt out when they first entered the abandoned office building.
A growl tells Dean that the beasty has tired of Kick the Hunter. “An overrated game, I always did say,” Dean forces out past the pain of broken ribs and bruised muscles. The lack of answering repartee from Sam worries him, but he can’t let that throw him off his game. <i>Not if we’re going to get out of this alive</i>.
Dean grabs his knife from his ankle sheath just as the beast picks him up. Somehow he manages to keep hold of the knife as he thrown across the room and bounces off the cheesing wood paneling that serves for walls. As his face meets the threadbare adobe colored carpeting, Dean has time to be thankful that at least the abandoned office building was devoid of cubicles. He hates it when he gets plastic shards embedded in his back.
Glancing over his shoulder, he spots the beast slowly stomping towards him.
Wincing, Dean struggles to his knees and prepares to face the beast. Behind it, he can see through the front office window and the deserted LA street beyond it. And red lights… he shakes his head. That couldn’t be right. It ain’t Christmas. Concussions usually don’t make him see colored lights, but his head did bounce off the wall pretty hard. Opening and closing his eyes, he looks again to see the beast closing in steadily, but warily, and through the window, he now sees red and blue police lights flashing from the dash of a black SUV.
Great, now he has to find a way to get him and Sam out of this alive and try to watch out for a civilian as well. Could this night possibly get any worse?
The beast is close enough for Dean to feint throwing the knife. When it dodges, he scrambles across the room towards his gun. He almost makes it when the <i>thing</i>’s foot (or fist, did it matter? Both hurt like hell. He’d swear to that on any book you put in front of him) connects squarely with Dean’s hip causing him to fall and skid the rest of the way to the gun. And past it until his head cracks once more on the uglified wood paneling that seems to be required interior decoration by every soul sucking corporation in America.
Fumbling through the random darkness, bright lights, and waves of dizziness for the gun, he hears an unmistakeable sound. He’s only heard once before in his entire hunting career - Dragon’s Breath. Way too expensive for the brand of hunting that the Winchester’s do (and generally overkill), but very effective on just about every damn demon or evil fiend out there.
The beast wails and through the fuzziness of his concussed vision, Dean smiles when it lights up in blue flames and thrashes around the room in its death throes. Even as his brain begins saying how bad a flaming body moving around a room decorated with cheap wood paneling is.
His brain shuts up pretty quickly when Dean sees the flame thrower (metal – probably silver, and gold, or brass. Either way, very pawnable) pointed directly at him. He drops his gun and raises his hands.
At that point, his body decides it’s had enough and that if this day won’t stop going wrong, it’s going to end it for him by passing out in a heap. Yep, that’s it. Unconscious heap. Cause there’s no way in hell he’ll admit to fainting at the sight of the pissed off woman holding the flame thrower. None at all.
<hr>
“And you brought them here, why?” a man asks.
“They’re human. If I took them to a hospital, I’d have to come up with an explanation for their condition. The cause of which is currently burning down an abandoned building and wouldn’t have fit in a prison cell anyway,” a woman answers. “I figured you must have some connections to get them fixed up.”
Instincts tell Dean to stay still even if every fiber of his being wants to check on his little brother. At least from what the couple are saying, he assumes the chick had rescued his brother as well. <i>Better have.</i>
“Doesn’t mean much. They could have raised the thing you burned. Any clue what it was or did you shoot first?”
“It ate about a dozen homeless before I got a lead on its lair. I shot first. If they raised it, they didn’t have any control. It was attacking them when I got there.”
“When humans make deals with the devil, they usually end up bit, Angela.”
“They’re awake.”
Busted.
“I know. I wanted to see how long they’d play dead.”
Dean opens his eyes even as his hands check for any one of his many weapons. He comes up empty, not even the knife is left in the back of his pants.
A man in a black suit jacket, white shirt, and black tie stands above him with a nasty gun aimed directly at his head. <i>Wonder who his supplier is and how much one of those beauties cost</i>, Dean wonders as he focuses on the gun. The dude tilts his head and Dean looks over to see all of his weapons, and Sam’s from the looks of it, piled well out of reach on a cheap kitchen table.
Dean spots Sam prone, but slowly moving, on the floor on the other side of the rather bare room. Bare except for the incantations carved into the wood around the windowsills, the big ass cross over what Dean figures is the front door, and the two people holding weapons on them both. The chick has a normal gun. Police issued, he guesses as he remembers the lights from earlier. <i>You had to wonder if things could get any worse, didn’t you, idiot?</i>
“Dean, what’s going on?” Sam asks in a loopy voice.
“Just making friends with the nice man holding the kickass gun,” Dean answers. He knows from experience that Sam’s rolling his eyes.
“So what were you two boys doing in that building? Make a wrong turn looking for a rave?” the man asks.
“Originally? A family member hired us after their deranged cousin went missing. Which led us to look into that rash of homeless murders for fear that he’d been a victim. After that, getting thoroughly thrashed for our trouble until your friend showed up. Angela, is it? Thanks,” Dean said.
“He’s lying,” Angela says
“Really? You’re finely honed psychic ability inform you of that?” the man replies.
Psychic. A joke, surely. There’s no way that Dean has bad enough luck to stumble across a psychic when he already has one for a brother.
“No, my many years of interrogating perps on the job, Constantine.”
Dean looks over at Sam to see his brother’s wide eyes staring back in shock.
“Constantine? <i>The</i> John Constantine?” Sam asks with more than a little awe in his voice. Little brother’s head wasn’t too shook up if he remembered that. Course, it would be hard to forget. Bobby used to love to tell them stories about the famed John Constantine when they were younger.
“Who’s asking?” Constantine asks, readjusting his aim on Dean.
Dean raises his hands again. “Whoah, whoah, whoah. No one bad. We’re on your side.”
“I don’t have a side,” Constantine growls out in a low voice.
“So you don’t enjoy blasting demons back to hell?” Sam asks.
“Demons, angels, it really makes no difference to me,” Constantine answers, but he does lower the gun to his side.
Dean takes the opportunity to push up into a sitting position against the wall. “Glad you aren’t picky. I hope you don’t include humans in that because we kinda enjoy being alive.”
Sam grunts. “Speak for yourself. I think that thing broke my arm.”
“Again?” Dean shakes his head. “I keep telling you to tuck and roll, bro.”
Angela holsters her gun. “Well, I definitely brought them to the right place. They’re just as insane as you are.”
<hr>
--> could do this scene from sam's pov and then the next from john's still w/ revelation about angela seeing the vision? No interrupts flow too much. Maybe alternate chapters back and forth from dean to sam?
It’s a couple of hours later, though Dean won’t put a firm figure on it given the size of his concussion and the really nice whiskey that Constantine is sharing for pain relief. Constantine is currently wrapping Sam’s wrist up after deciding it probably isn’t broken (while it isn’t bending oddly, it’s not bending without Sam screaming either. But they really don’t have the cash for a hospital visit at the moment, and most of their IDs are currently parked on a lot with a burning building on the other side of LA).
“So how do you know John?” the lady cop asks.
“I wouldn’t mind knowing that myself,” Constantine says.
Sam, much loopier from the whiskey and aspirin that Constantine had poured down his throat, answers. “Growing up, Bobby used to tell us all sorts of stories about you and Pastor Jim. Said the three of you cut quite a path together back in the day.”
“Bobby Singer?” Constantine asks with a frown. “Thought he went into the wrecking business.”
Dean tops off his glass of whiskey as he answers. “He did. Still collects a lot of occult books and gives us a discount on car repairs. By the way, my car gets towed, you are so paying to get it out,” he tells Angela.
She rolls her eyes at him and starts to say something, but pauses and puts a hand to her head. At the same time, Sam yells and falls to the floor in classic vision mode.
“What the hell?” Constantine says as he catches Angela before she falls to the floor. Dean crosses the room where his brother is writhing beside the stained bed he was lying on.
“Jess. Dean, I saw Jess,” Sam croaks out before passing out.
“A little help here?” Dean asks. Constantine leads Angela into the little kitchen and gets her situated at the table before coming to help lift Sam back on the bed.
“That happen often?”
“More than I like,” Dean says. “Pretty stupid for the psychic friends network to make him helpless while yakking about the future in my opinion. What about her?”
“I’m right here,” Angela says. “And I’m fine.”
“So what? Bleedover from the boy then?” Constantine asks.
“I don’t know, John. You tell me. I haven’t been doing this very long,” Angela answers. “God, my head is killing me though.”
“Wait, she really is a psychic?” Dean asks
“Psychic enough to almost create hell on Earth,” Constantine says, earning a glare from Angela. “His visions bring you to LA?”
Dean shakes his head. “We really were hired by a loon’s family.”
Constantine pours a glass of whiskey. “So what’d he see. Sounded like he said a name.”
Yeah, a name. Sam’d been going on about catching glimpses of Jess in dirty gas station mirrors and unwashed windows for months. Dean had hoped that giving his brother things to hunt and a goal (the death of the demon that killed Mom, Jess, and now Dad) would be enough to help Sam through the grief. Ever since Ellicot possessed him in the asylum though, he’d been seeing Jess (and occasionally other dead people). Dean had no intention of telling Constantine his brother was slowly cracking up.
“Jess,” Angela states.
“What?” Dean asks, playing dumb. There’s no way. As far as Dean can tell, there’s only one good thing about Sam’s visions, the thrashing generally keeps bystanders from hearing what he might whimper.
Angela takes Constantine’s glass from him and drinks it before answering. “Jess, he called her Jess. At least I think we were seeing the same thing. He was there. They both were. The girl was about to kill you,” Angela says as she looks at Dean. “He was pleading with her not to and he called her Jess. And sweetheart.”
Dean looks back over at his unconscious brother. Looks like Sammy had started keeping secrets.
<hr>
Dean pretends not to notice when Constantine tells Angela that she should leave. He waits till they step outside the apartment before grabbing his glass (always have an alibi if you’re eavesdropping, Dean-o) and following them.
“You’d think you’d want the person who just gave you a lead on the Dynamic Duo in there to stick around,” Angela says. Dean’s glad to see that the door’s been left open a crack.
“I’ve told you before, it’s not healthy to around me.”
“I can take care of myself, John.”
“Good, because I can’t. Do me a favor and see if you can get their car towed over here or something.”
Dean can pretty much imagine the look Angela is giving Constantine right now. He’s gotten that look a time or two from Sam. Sam had given Dad that look an awful lot.
“At least tell me what’s going on,” Angela pleads.
A slight thud and plaster drifting down from the ceiling tells Dean that Constantine just punched the wall.
“If they’re who I think they are, you’re better off not knowing. In fact, you’d be better off taking a vacation to the other side of the world right about now.”
“If that’s the case, why aren’t you telling them to get lost.”
“I gotta satisfy my death wish somehow now that I don’t smoke. The car, Angela. And try to make sure no one searches it, or it’ll never get it released.”
Creaking floorboards send Dean fleeing to the kitchen sink to fill his glass with water.
“Hear enough?” Constantine asks.
Dean’s good at lying generally. Used to get away with it to pretty much everyone except Dad and Pastor Jim. Something tells him that Constantine falls into that same category, except, well, you know, alive.
“You seem to know what’s going on here. Mind clueing a brother in?”
Constantine drops into the kitchen chair and rubs his face. “God, I’d kill for a cigarette.” He looks over at the bed. “He still out?” When Dean nods, Constantine grabs the bottle of whiskey and takes a swig. “I don’t know all of it, but knowing that your last name is Winchester is enough.”
“How?”
“John Winchester is the only man I know that would leave his kids with either Murphy or Singer. Most parents would rather let Dick Cheney play baby sitter than those two.”
“There’s nothing wrong with –“
“Son, I didn’t say there was. Most parents avoid our ilk instinctually.”
Dean avoids the implications of that reasoning as he sips his water while leaning on the sink. “You still haven’t said what you think is going on.”
“And I won’t until we hear what your brother has to say. In the meantime, the salt is in the cabinet behind you. Won’t hurt to line the doors and windows.”
Looking at the protective runes and scriptures carved into the door frame and window sills is when Dean starts to get goose bumps. Salt over the thresholds is like pouring water over a gas stove once the gas main has been turned off. If anything demonic can come uninvited through the barriers already there, salt sure as hell isn’t going to stop them.
Busy work has always made Dean more nervous than just plain waiting.
<hr>
She can feel him. He feels the same even though she’s altered. She still has the memories though, the taste of love. Now it tastes bitter. Betrayed. Left out.
“His fault,” the darkness whispers. She agrees. She’s not entirely sure why it took her so long to do so.
It doesn’t matter though. He’ll pay for what he did. She’s got the perfect punishment in mind too.
“Such a good girl,” the voices whisper. She basks in the praise. “We’ll never leave you.”
<hr>
Chapter 2: Nobody’s Perfect
Constantine keeps his promise and remains silent until Sam wakes up. Dean spends that hour thoroughly bored. At least at a motel, he’d have cable to watch while he cleaned his guns and knives (or at least the ones that they have on them. Hopefully Angela does manage to rescue the Impala). Here, he’s stuck with grainy network channels. Worse, it’s daytime TV. He’s half convinced that Dr. Phil is the spawn of Satan.
“Eung..Dean?”
“Right here, Sammy. Here,” he instructs as he places two painkillers in Sam’s palm. After digging through Sam’s coat and finding the mostly empty bottle, Dean’s convinced that Sam’s been hiding his visions recently.
Sam dry swallows the pills before squinting his eyes open and looking around the room. “Constantine’s. Lady cop saved our butts and brought us here before you got a call from the Psychic Friends Network,” Dean summarizes. That makes Sam sit up fast and grab Dean painfully on two of his many bruises.
“Jess. I saw Jess. We’ve got to get to her.”
“Whoa, sport,” Dean says. Worry and fear make the whiskey in his stomach sour. “We don’t have to go anywhere. Jess is dead.” Sam’s face crumbles.
“What did you see?” Constantine asks.
“No, he’s right, it must’ve been the concussion,” Sam says as he sinks back onto the bed.
“Humor me,” Constantine dryly insists.
Sam looks from Dean to Constantine and back again before repeating what Angela had said earlier. “It was Jess. She was on a playground. She was so happy. And then she had Dean and was going to kill him. It doesn’t make any sense. It had to be the concussion.”
“And Jess, how did she die?” Constantine asks.
Sam jumps off the bed and sprints in the direction of the toilet. Dean winces. The painkillers probably didn’t mix too well with the earlier aspirin and whiskey. “Same way as our mother did,” Dean answers.
Constantine looks towards the bathroom. “He was there for that one too, wasn’t he?”
“We both were. Carried him out of the first one and dragged him out when Jess was burning up a year ago. If you’ve got an epiphany to share with us about this damn demon, speak up.”
“Did you see her body?”
“I was four, no, I didn’t see my mother’s body.”
“He means Jess,” Sam answers from where he’s leaning against the door frame of the bathroom. “No, there was nothing left.”
“What’s your dad have to say about all this?” Constantine asks.
Dean’s getting pissed at all the questions. “Nothing. He died of a heart attack just after we all survived being run over by a demon driven semi.”
That news shocks Constantine silent for a few seconds. “So he never got the Colt?”
Dean glances over at Sam, but so far, his brother is winning the contest of wills with gravity. “No, we found it. Five bullets, one massive car crash, an out of body experience, and our dad dying, it kinda got –“
“Lost,” Sam finishes.
“Lost? You just lost one of the most powerful and effective weapons against demons,” Constantine restates.
“Yeah, that about covers it,” Dean replies. “It wasn’t the finest moment in Winchester hunting history.”
Constantine rubs his face and then begins to pace between the bedroom and kitchen. “Your girlfriend - what was her full name?”
“Jessica Moore. Why?” Sam answers.
Constantine turns and heads for the apartment door. “Stay here, I’ll be back.”
“If you’re going after that demon, or information on it, we’re coming with you,” Sam says, as he stumbles away from the bathroom.
“No, you’re not. Both of you can barely stand and you’ll only draw more unwanted attention to me than normal. Stay here, don’t invite anyone or anything in. Understand?” Constantine’s glare reminds Dean a lot of Missouri. Feels like they both can look right through you and see the mischief you’re planning.
“We’re not newbies, Constantine. We’ve been doing this since we could walk,” Dean answers.
“No, you’ve been chasing werewolves and poltergeists since you were kids. This is demons, as in the big leagues. I told your father he was an idiot to go after this thing with anything less than magic and creatures of his own, but he didn’t want to get his soul, or yours I suspect, dirty. If you aren’t going to do what I say, get the fuck out of my town before you get anyone I know hurt.”
With that, Constantine slams the door.
<hr>
Constantine walks around the block to a diner to get a cup of coffee. After paying, he pulls out his cell phone to call Angela.
<i>Dodson</i>.
“It’s Constantine. Have you got their car yet?”
<i>I just got to the impound lot, John. No, I don’t have it yet.</i>
“When you do, could you stop by Joe’s Diner? I want to have a look at it before I go asking stupid questions from folks that don’t like me.”
<i>What happened to get the hell out of town?</i>
“Honestly, that still applies. But drop off the car here before you leave on vacation.”
He isn’t surprised when she hangs up on him. He knows she hates being kept out of the loop, but he hopes that for once she’ll take his advice. Hell, he just might knock her out and put in a box addressed to Bora Bora if she doesn’t. John Winchester always did give him the willies, and he’s not getting any warm fuzzy feelings off his two boys.
It takes about an hour before Angela shows up with the car. Constantine whistles out loud when he sees it. He’s not normally someone who cares much about cars, but even he can appreciate the beauty that is the 1967 Chevrolet Impala. In black to boot.
“Park it in the alley,” Constantine tells her when she pulls to the curb outside the diner.
“Okay, so what’s so special about the car? Is it possessed?”
Constantine just rolls his eyes. “Keys?”
When he pops the trunk, the space is much smaller than should be in a car this size. He hands two bags of close and a large container of salt to Angela and then starts feeling around. Soon his hand hits the hidden switch and the false bottom rises.
“Holy shit. No wonder they wanted it back so fast.”
Constantine nods in agreement. The trunk holds a large array (even by his standards) of shotguns, pistols, and rifles, plus knives, stakes, chains, gas cans filled with…yep, holy water, and tools for smelting bullets.
“Should be a journal in here somewhere. John Winchester always carried a ratty old journal,” he mumbles. Finally, he goes around and gets in the car. He finds the journal peeking out from under the passenger side seat.
Flipping through it, he finds information on all the normal things that hunters would go after: succubi, werewolves, ghosts, and the like. A page here and there describes other odd fires that Winchester had followed up on.
The wind blows just right through the car and causes him to shiver. It’s been oddly cold for April in LA. Not enough to be quite out of the norm, but enough that even with his suit jacket he gets the chills now and again. From the way that Angela’s rubbing her hands together, she’s feeling the temperature as well.
“I should let you get back to work,” Constantine says. “Thanks for bringing the car over.”
She raises an eyebrow. “Well, I did what you said and took some vacation. So I can drive you wherever you need to go.”
“I was dead serious about what I said before, Angela. This isn’t safe. Especially with your abilities.”
She just crosses her arms. “Abilities you have as well. And that kid in there. I can help.”
“That kid has been dealing with this stuff almost since he was born. You’ve been doing it a few years. These are demons, we’re talking about.”
“I thought you said only half-breeds could get onto our plane.”
He gets out and shuts the Impala’s trunk. “Technically, that’s true, but there’s always a loophole. I’m not sure what this thing is, but from what I’ve heard, it’s not a normal half-breed.” With that, he pulls out his wallet and gives Angela twenty dollars.
“What’s this for? Supplies?”
He shakes his head and gets into the car. “Cab fare,” he tells her as he slams the door shut. He hates driving in LA, but he hates the idea of anyone else getting hurt because of him even more.
<hr>
Sam's rather relieved once Constantine leaves.
<hr>
Traffic in LA is a bitch, but Constantine manages to reach the planetarium of the Jesuit university just in time for the matinee. He’d of preferred not to have to sit through the entire show, but he resigns himself to an hour in a dark theater. Maybe it wouldn’t have been such a bad idea to have brought Angela along after all.
It takes a while for the room to clear after the show, but soon he’s alone with the speaker.
“You show a lot of nerve showing up after what happened to Gabriel,” the lecturer says.
Everyone’s still a little tetchy that Gabriel was made human for trying to bring Mamnon to Earth while Constantine actually managed to erase the sins damning him hell. He just shrugs it off. Half-breeds (angels or demons, makes no difference really. One just causes less trouble than the other) aren’t that different from humans – most have a chip on their shoulder about something. “Gabriel made a choice, Sariel. Are you going to hold that against me?” He looks up to where the heavens are still projected on the ceiling. “Still teaching man about how the progress of the heavens, eh?”
“What brings you here, Constantine?”
“I need information about a soul that passed about a year ago. Jessica Moore.”
Sariel’s eyes flash silver and his wings ruffle. It’s impossible for Constantine to tell if it’s in irritation or not. “Why?”
Constantine stands and walks down the aisle closer to the archangel. “Well, two people saw her die. And now two psychics have had visions that she’ll kill someone. It doesn’t add up.” Or it does. But he doesn’t like the sum he’s getting off of it.
“And you’re not telling me everything,” Sariel accuses.
“I don’t know everything.”
“Humility in the great John Constantine. Miracles do happen.” Sariel closes his eyes briefly. “She died, but her soul was, how would you say, <i>redirected</i>.”
“By the same thing that killed her?”
“I’m not the omniscient one, John. That’s all I know.”
<hr>
Sariel’s news bothers John more than he’d like to admit. Not quite as bad as learning that Gabriel had decided to help Mamnon start hell on Earth early, but definitely not good. The notes in Winchester’s journal are as sketchy as he remembers, and it’s been five years since he’d talked with the man.
Even after twenty years of hunting, Winchester hadn’t been able to tell Constantine anything for him to be able to help. Well, beyond telling the Winchester patriarch that what he was fighting was big and bad and he’d have to get his hands dirty if he wanted to live through it. It looked like he’d ignored the advice.
Normals getting involved in exorcisms and hunting never ended well in Constantine’s opinions. Not that it ended all that well for those who weren’t normal. Seemed like Sam Winchester wasn’t quite normal. Which only peaked Constantine’s curiosity since there’d been no mention of that when John Winchester came calling.
<blockquote><i>
“It killed your wife, but the three of you got out without a scratch?” Constantine asked, incredulous.
Winchester shrugged. “My arms were burned from trying to put the fire out and get to her, but yeah.” He slammed back his shot of whiskey and grabbed the bottle to pour another.
Constantine pushed his own glass away and lit up a cigarette. “In my experience, that’s not how these things operate. Your boys – they’re both…normal?”
“Normal as you can be growing up hunting these damn monsters.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, John, but I haven’t heard of anything like it. Sorry to hear that Murphy sent you all this way for nothing.”
“Wasn’t out of the way. There was another one in a town eighty miles south of here last week. Finished up and figured I might as well see if the legendary John Constantine had anything to offer.”
</blockquote>
He’d been impressed with Winchester’s reputation, but dubious of his means. It was a miracle he and his sons had survived unscathed as long as they had.
That or there was a very patient demon with a very specific plan. Constantine cursed at the traffic impatiently. He had a feeling that the Winchester boys were running out of time.
<hr>
When he arrives back at his apartment, Dean, Sam, and Angela are sitting at the wooden kitchen table eating fast food. “What the hell, I told you not to let anyone in!” Constantine almost yells.
The three exchange glances before Angela speaks up. “They needed food. Man can’t live on whiskey alone. There’s a bag in the fridge for you.”
Constantine pins Sam and Dean with a glare. “The next time I give you an order, you’d better follow it. If not, get the hell out of here right now. Your car’s parked in the alley.” He throws the keys to the Impala on the table and stalks to the bathroom.
When he comes back, all three are still there.
“So?” Dean asks, as if nothing just happened. “Find anything during your illegal search of my car?”
Constantine grabs the food from the fridge and sits down. After he chews a bite of the cold burger, he takes the journal out of his jacket pocket and tosses it on the table. “Since I saw your Dad five years ago, it doesn’t look like he’d learned anything new.”
Sam shakes his head. “That stuff’s all old. He took off on his own a while back and started to find a pattern.”
“What kind of pattern?”
“Weather changes, cattle mutilations, crop circles. That sort of thing,” Dean answers.
“All of these would happen during the weeks before another person was killed by fire. By the demon. And, they all happened on the day that an infant turned six months old,” Sam adds.
The bad feeling in Constantine’s stomach gets worse. There’d been an outbreak of some cattle virus at one of the stockyards outside the city in the paper this last weekend. And it was awful chilly in LA for April.
“We actually stopped one just before the wreck,” Dean says in a subdued voice. Suddenly, Constantine knows where quite a few of the bullets for the Colt must have gone.
“Dad said the Colt was the only way to stop this thing. Was he right?” Sam asks.
Constantine watches the way that Dean’s lost interest in his food. There’s something to this story that he’s not getting. “It’s the safest way. Only real way your father was equipped to deal with it.”
“Meaning what exactly?” Sam asks.
“As a last resort, demons can be summoned to fight other demons. It’s dangerous though,” Constantine replies. He can feel them behind him. He wonders if Angela and Sam can see his ghosts or not.
Angela’s eyes widen with shock. “You’ve done that?”
Constantine doesn’t answer. “There may be another way though. Partly it depends on what this demon wants. Did your dad find anything out about that?”
Sam’s entire body pulls in on itself and he speaks so soft that Constantine has to strain to hear it. “It said that it had plans for me and the kids like me.”
<i>Kids like me</i>. That meant that all of the kids were like Sam. “Like what? All of you have flashes of the future? Doesn’t seem like too much of a threat there to me.”
“They’re not all like Sam. One was a telekinetic. There’s another who can make people do whatever he tells them,” Dean explains.
Constantine wishes he hadn’t eaten his burger now. The feeling in his stomach was only getting worse. He checks his watch. Eight pm. Midnite’s place should be open by now. “Okay then. Sam, you up for a ride?”
“Where are we going?” Dean asks.
“We are going nowhere. You and Angela are staying here. Sam and I are going to visit a friend.”
“No,” Dean says. “Look, we appreciate the help, but I’m not going to let you just take my brother. Bad enough you drove my car.”
John starts to argue, then waves his head. “Fine, I guess we’re all going. Good thing you have four seats.” Thankfully, the door test should keep Dean from getting into Midnite’s. Hopefully Angela will elect to stay with him.
<hr>
The demon sniffs at the air to taste the ether. The game has changed. The boys have added a player to the game. Smelling again, it smiles. More than one player. This should be delicious.
Constantine’s familiar. A bane to their kind, but an ignorant one in this.
It really doesn’t matter though. The Colt’s out of the game and there’s nothing else left on Earth with the power to hurt it. At least, not in it’s true form. Losing meatsacks can be disorienting and a hassle, but it only slows him.
The plans in motion and nothing’s going to stop it. Certainly not an exorcist with a new lease on his soul that’s lost the taste for no holds bar fighting.
<hr>
Chapter 3: Can You See It?
The ride to Midnite’s was spent listening to Constantine expound on the rules of the nightclub.
From the sound of it, it’s nowhere Dean wants to be and he definitely doesn’t want to let Sam walk in there. At least not without at least five shotguns full of rock salt and silver. “So let me see if I’ve got this straight. This place is full of demons –“
“Half-breed demons,” Constantine corrects.
“<i>Demons</i> doing whatever they like and we’re just supposed to walk past them” Dean finishes.
“Papa Midnite’s club is neutral ground, as is he. No matter what any half-breed in there says to me, I’ve never been tempted to break the rules. Midnite isn’t a man you want to cross,” Constantine says. “Not that you’ll have to worry about it.”
“What do you mean by that?” Dean demands.
In the rearview mirror, Dean sees Constantine smirk. “If you can get in, follow the rules.” No matter how much Sam and Dean badgered him, Constantine refuses to elaborate. Angela just sits silently beside him.
To Dean, the outside of the nightclub appears like any other any big city in America. Slightly run down neighborhood, neon signs on the outside, stip joints a couple of doors away, and bouncer as soon as you enter the door.
Except this bouncer is holding up a card.
“A rabbit on a bicycle,” Constantine says. The large, towering bouncer puts the card down and opens the velvet rope for him to enter before locking it behind him.
“I don’t know if I can do this,” Sam whispers to Dean.
“It’s the only way to get in,” Constantine says from where he’s waiting.
Dean doesn’t particularly want Sam to do this either, but Constantine seems to think this Midnite might have some insight on how to kill the demon. “Go ahead, we’ll never know till you try.”
“But Dean,” Sam starts. Dean just pushes him forward.
The bouncer holds up a card and Dean holds his breath.
Sam squints his eyes and pauses for what seems like ten minutes. “A bear on a mountain?” The bouncer puts the card down and opens the rope.
Constantine’s grinning like an idiot as he leans on the wall and Dean’s aware of the fact that a line is growing behind them. He looks over at Angela, but she’s silent with her arms crossed. No help there.
Dean looks at the waiting card and then at his brother. It’s stupid, but what the hell. Worst that will happen is he sits out here chewing on his nails and waiting for Sammy. “Frogs on a park bench,” Dean says in his bullshit voice.
He almost falls over when the guy opens the velvet rope one more time. He smirks when he sees that Constantine has lost a bit of balance too.
“Purple chickens on a see-saw,” Angela adds and then she too is in line following Constantine through the club.
Constantine had tried to prepare them. Dean’s half convinced that the man either drugged him or he has serious brain damage. He’s seen a lot of things in his life, but this is unreal. The music and lights and disco balls are like any other club, but everything else just makes his skin crawl. Especially when he accidentally meets the eyes of some of the other <i>patrons</i>. Yellow, red, ice blue. Smiles full of fangs. Drinks of the color red that they have to be blood. Or at least contain blood. What he hopes are orgies on tables.
It’s not long before Dean glues his eyes to the back of his brother’s coats just to preserve his own sanity. It takes a lot of strength to not reach out and grab onto it for dear life.
A door opens and the cacophony of music (and screams) dies away. Dean savors the silence and the feel of his skin settling back into its proper places before he looks around. The room (office? Den?) is decorated in dark colors and wood. A slim black man is dressed in a loud shirt and brown suede that reminds Dean of the disco era. When he stands in greeting, Dean revises his opinion. He exudes an aura of power that is matched by his muscled physique. Suddenly, Constantine’s advice to follow this man’s rules seems like a good idea.
“John, what brings you by unannounced?” the man asks, a light accent that Dean can’t quite place. It’s different than the few Hatian voodoo priests he’s met.
“We’ve got a slight <i>problem</i>, Midnite,” Constantine answers.
Midnite chuckles deeply. “You always have problems, friend. Maybe if you were nicer to people. Aren’t you going to introduce your guests?”
“Sam and Dean Winchester,” Constantine answers. Dean notices that he doesn’t bother to introduce the lady cop. Looking at her, she either doesn’t mind the omission or she’s been here before.
The witch doctor doesn’t react at all upon hearing their names and just waits for Constantine to continue. “Sam’s girlfriend died a year ago. Murdered by a demon. Except Sariel says the soul got <i>misplaced</i>.”
“Demons aren’t allowed up here, John, and souls don’t get lost. Maybe she wasn’t entirely truthful with the young man about her life,” Midnite answers.
Dean’s getting impatient. “It’s a demon alright. Has the possession part down full. We’ve killed a couple of its kids, but the smoky bastard left it’s host the one time we cornered it.” He doesn’t mention that it had been in Dad at the time.
Midnite focuses in on Dean then. “What’s he even doing in here?”
Constantine looks at Dean and then looks over at Sam. “I’m pretty sure it’s his brother’s doing. That or I’m really losing my touch.”
“Come here, boy,” Midnite says, gesturing to Sam. Dean reaches out to stop him, but Constantine knocks his arm down as Sam steps forward. When Midnite stands, Dean’s surprised to see that he’s just as tall as his brother. He grabs Sam’s chin and then whispers a few words that Dean can’t hear.
After what feel like a few skipped heartbeats, Sam falls down to one knee gasping and Midnite stumbles back into the table. Ignoring Midnite, after all, he can always kill the guy later if he’s hurt Sam, Dean’s immediately at Sam’s side. His gut clenches when he realizes that Sam’s sobbing soundlessly.
Peripherally, he’s aware of Angela kneeling down at his side while Constantine helps Midnite to his chair.
“You should find some new friends to take your <i>problems</i> to, John,” Midnite says. “There’s whiskey in that cabinet, Detective Dodson. I think we could all do with a shot.”
“Oh, God, Dean. It’s my fault. I should have stopped it,” Sam gasps. “Jesse was so good, she doesn’t deserve this.”
Silence fills the room as Angela pours a glass of whiskey and hands it to Dean. Sam’s still pretty incoherent, but between his emotions and previous injuries, Dean manages to get him to drink the liquor without too much force. He stays at Sam’s side, but locks a glare on Midnite. “What did you do to my brother, asshole?”
Midnite laughs out loud at him. “Boy’s almost as insolent as you were at that age, John.”
Constantine shoots Dean a look before turning his attention back to Midnite. “What happened?”
“He’s not like you or your friend, for one. His gift,” Midnite pauses. “I don’t know exactly what it is. But I can feel that thing you said was a demon through it.”
“Sam’s not evil,” Dean protests.
Midnite shakes his head. “I didn’t say that. But he’s not natural either. This thing that’s plagued your family, it knows exactly where you are all the time. I don’t think it goes any further than that – it can’t control him or see through him. At least not yet.”
“The Colt’s gone. Got any specifics on this thing so I know how to fight it?” Constantine asks.
Midnite shakes his head. “The Colt’s not gone. Is it, Dean?”
Constantine looks at Dean. “What does he mean?”
Sam’s so ready to take the blame for everything, but there’s no one to blame for this but himself. If he’d been stronger, or if he’d given into the Reaper earlier, everything might be different. “The wreck I told you about. I was dying. Dad gave the Colt to the demon in exchange for my life.” The words taste just as bitter coming out as they have echoing through his skull for months.
“Sounds like it’s as good as gone then,“ Constantine says after a moment. “I still need to know how to fight this thing, Midnite.”
“Without its name, or the Colt, there’s only one way,” Midnite says.
“Solomon’s Ring has been missing for a long time,” Constantine replies.
Angela speaks up for the first time. “Solomon’s Ring, but that’s just a story.”
“You see and hear demons and angels every day, Angela. Do you really want to debate which Bible stories are true or not?” Constantine asks. “You had one of Solomon’s Keys in your trunk. I don’t suppose –“
Dean cuts him off. “I think if Bobby had found the ring, he’d of mentioned it.”
Midnite walks over to the door. “Sorry I couldn’t be more help, John. Now I think you’d better get your friend out of here before the place fills up too much. No sense in attracting new problems,” he says with wave in the direction of Sam.
Personally, it’s the first good idea that Dean’s heard all night. “Come, little brother. Remember to do all your vomiting BEFORE you get in my car.”
<hr>
They drop Angela off at her own car and then return to Constantine’s apartment. Dean would prefer to hightail it out of the city, but Sam’s not in any shape to be traveling tonight. If he’s truthful, Dean’s not either.
Still, once he gets Sam settled, Dean joins Constantine in the kitchen. “You know something that you aren’t sharing.”
“Seems to me that we’re all doing that.”
“Well, now you know everything. So spill.”
Constantine snorts. “Yeah, but not because you’ve told me anything. Your dad gave more than just the Colt in return for your life, didn’t he?”
Dean clenches his fists. It would be so easy to swing, but there’s still the chance that this asshole might know something that will help. “Yeah. So?”
“Your Dad was a fool, but not an idiot. Hold on,” Constantine says firmly when Dean takes a step forward. “I don’t mean that as an insult. Just stating that facts. Anyone who gets involved in this business is one kind of a fool or another. I doubt he handed the gun and his soul over without making sure the deal was done. Without talking to both of you.”
<blockquote><i>Yeah, yeah, I’m just a little tired. Hey, son, would you mind getting me a cup of caffeine?”
…
Don’t be scared, Dean.</i></blockquote>
“Or maybe he didn’t tell both of you. Maybe he just told you, the eldest, the strongest?” Constantine suggests.
Dean closes his eyes and clenches his teeth. He’s been trying to tell himself that those words were all a lie. Another planned deception by that evil bastard to torture his family. <i>Demons lie</i>. It’s what they are. What they do.
“What did he say, Dean?”
“It’s not true!”
“What did he say?”
<blockquote><i>Don’t be afraid, Dean. He’s still your brother even if he isn’t my son. He’s human. He’s good. Protect Sammy, Dean. Whatever you do, protect your little brother.</i></blockquote>
The words echo in his head so much that he doesn’t even realize he’s said them out loud until Constantine curses. “Fuck. Well, that explains the link Midnite felt.”
“It’s not true,” Dean insists.
Constantine just turns away and looks out the window over the city street. “Half-breeds exist all over this world. How do you think they came to be, Dean?”
“Sam’s not a demon.”
“I didn’t say he was. But he’s not completely human. It doesn’t matter, though. He’s not evil.”
“He’s not a demon.”
Constantine turns back and drops into a chair. He looks at the bottle of whiskey, but he doesn’t pour any more drinks. “The others like Sam. Have you met any of them?”
Dean doesn’t like where this is going. “Yeah.” Constantine doesn’t say anything else, he just waits. “Max was this telekinetic. Completely frakked up by his abusive parents.”
“Again, I’m getting that there’s more to this story than you’re telling me.”
“He was fixing to kill me. Sam stopped him.” Dean swallows. “And his mom died the same way ours did. Then there were these twins a couple months back. Were split up in the foster care system, but both had some Obi-wan power of compulsion thing. Except one went Vader and the other went Luke. After killing a lot of people, Luke killed Vader, just like the movie.”
Telling it, Dean realizes what was missing. Yeah, the mothers were all killed by the same yellow eyed demon, but the kids. What they did, they did it all on their own. No clouds of black smoke after anyone died. Just plain human deaths. “They died though. They weren’t demons,” he insists.
“I can’t make you believe it, Dean. But you know the stories as well as I do. Since the dawn of man, there’s stories of women ravaged by a mysterious night visitor. Giving birth to something other than human. You’re dad wasn’t lying. Sam’s your brother. But he wasn’t your father’s son. Or maybe he is, but not entirely.”
Constantine leaves then. Dean stares out the window and wonders how much more night is left. Somehow, he doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to sleep tonight. Hell, maybe never again.
<hr>
She finds him easily, just where the shadows said he’d be. He’s sleeping. He usually is when she comes to him. Occasionally she’ll follow during the day and haunt his vision, but at night it’s easier. He can’t get away from her in his dreams.
<i>Jesse. I’ve missed you so much. Don’t ever leave me again.</i>
Never, she says. There’s a way we can be together always. Just tell me that’s what you want.
<i>It’s all I’ve ever wanted, sweetheart. Us. Together forever. Whatever it takes.</i>
I won’t let you forget that this is what you wanted, Sam. Everything I do, I do it for you.
As dawn casts its light over LA, she leaves him then. In the end, they’ll be together. She’ll get to watch his punishment for all eternity. It’s only what he deserves for letting her die, after all.
<hr>
Chapter 4: You Knew Better
Constantine wakes to the same generalized anxiety that he went to bed with. This whole situation is bad with a capital B, but now it’s in his town and so it’s his problem. Things would be easier if he thought that maybe he could end it before it started by killing Sam, but well, that’s a bad idea for a number of reasons. One, it would probably mean killing Dean as well. Two, he’s not really sure that Sam wouldn’t count as human enough to damn him to hell again if Constantine did kill the boy.
Well, eliminating options is what formulating a battle plan is all about.
Both Winchesters have at least recovered energy if not health when they start moving around. Coffee is shared with words, but Constantine can feel Dean’s glare on him the entire time.
Which only serves to remind Constantine of last night’s puzzle when Dean managed to read the card. One more thing to keep an eye on.
He’s alone in the kitchen when someone knocks on the front door. Opening it to find Angela on the other side is unsurprising. He leaves the door open and walks away, fully expecting she’ll follow.
His sense of unease and anxiety ratchet up a notch when he turns and she’s still on the opposite side of the threshold. “A report came in from another precinct that matched the description of Sam’s girlfriend.”
“Which you recognized how?” Constantine asks. “Oh, right, you saw the same vision. They’re almost ready I think.”
She shakes her head. “Your apartment is a tad crowded with four. I’ll wait downstairs in my car and then drive us all to the sighting.”
“Christo,<<is this="this" in="in" fact="fact" the="the" correct="correct" term?="term?" i="I" know="know" there’s="there’s" some="some" debate="debate" as="as" to="to" if="if" sam="sam" and="and" dean="dean" say="say" it="it" right="right">>” Constantine says, praying he’s wrong. Angela’s eyes turn black and she smiles evilly.
“Always the smart one, Johnny boy. I guess the question is, will you be smart enough.”
Constantine’s running for the door even as she starts talking, but she takes off running just before he reaches it. “Fuck! Hurry up, or I’m hot wiring your car,” he yells at the Winchesters as he starts grabbing exorcism supplies.
He’s not having another ghost following him around if he can help it.
<hr>
The Winchesters move fast even when banged up, he'll give them that. He has his supplies in a bag and is headed to the door when they both follow.
"What's going on?" Sam asks.
"Angela showed up at the door possessed, that's what," he answers as the run down the stairs. "Keys," he tells Dean, with his hand out.
Dean gives a little laugh. "Oh no, yesterday was a one time event because I was too concussed to know what was happening. You aren't driving my car."
"He knows the town better than we do, Dean," Sam points out as he gets in the backseat.
"Good, he can navigate from shotgun. I'm driving," Dean says.
Constantine sees Angela's black SUV pass the alley so he doesn't bother arguing anymore. Slamming the door, he yells at Dean, "Follow her!"
He's impressed with Dean's driving. Even with the older car, he has no problem catching up to and staying with the newer SUV. Constantine keeps his eyes locked on the car so he's surprised when Sam hits the back of his seast and starts yelling in pain.
"Jesse. And kids. A schoolyard I think. They're all dead. Dying. We've got to turn around," Sam says.
Constantine stops Dean from turning the wheel, but just barely. "No, keep following her. It's a distraction."
"Sorry, dude, but a group of innocent kids trumps one possessed cop any day," Dean says as he tries to push Constantine away.
"Think about it. It's Sunday morning. What schoolyard is going to have kids in it right now? I promise, as soon as exorcise that asshole out of Angela, we'll stop it. I swear," Constantine says. Dean glares at him, but the Impala speeds up and continues to follow Angela's SUV.
"No," Sam yells. "We have to stop it. And save Jesse, whatever the hell's going on with her. Dean, please!"
"Keep driving, Dean. Sam, do you even know where this is happening at? If we don't know where to go, it's pointless to stop following the one demon we do have a lead on." Sam shakes his head, but Constantine has an idea. It's not anything he's ever tried before. Personally, he hates visions, but that may be because he's always had to induce them pharmacologically. But if it's possible to pass between the planes and see what's in hell, surely he can tap into what Sam's seeing.
Not that he really wants to. It's bad enough to see every halfbreed demon and angel on the street; seeing what's going to happen in the future hasn't ever been on his high list of things to do.
Still, he digs through his bag and finds a vial of holy water. He wets his left hand and then turns around in the seat. "Keep driving, Dean," he repeats and then he slaps his wet hand on Sam's forehead while holding his neck still with the other.
<blockquote>Time slows. <i>St. John's Academy</i> reads a sign on the building in front of him. There's a schoolyard at its side and silence hangs in the air. Silence and sulfur. He sees the ghostly young woman and the schoolyard of dead children, but there's more. He senses IT and feels IT sense him. It's amused at the new toy.
<i>Curiosity killed the cat</i> floats to him through the ether a split second before the lancing pain hits his entire body. It's as if electricity and fire have combined together to burn him from the inside out.
The ghosts around him just shake their heads. <i>Your fault. All you ever do is get people killed. Now it's your turn</i>, they say, but without any eagerness. </blockquote>
A punch in the jaw from Dean is welcome relief to the excruciating agony from the demon. Constantine slams against the passenger side door while Sam falls back in his seat, gasping.
"What the hell? I'm trying to drive here, do you think you two could avoid demonic attacks until the car stops?" Dean yells.
"I saw it. It's not happening yet," Constantine says as he tries to collect himself. Recovering from the attack isn't aided by Dean's rapid sharp turn as he continues to follow Angela's van. "I know where."
"Then we'd better wrap up this chase," Dean says as he tries to pull closer to the SUV. The Impala doesn't have quite the horsepower and slips behind the longer they stay on the straight away. Which turns out to be a good thing when an old Ford truck slams into the front of Angela's SUV. Horrified, Constantine watches as the SUV and truck go airborne. Fortunately, traffic is light and neither vehicle hits any others. Angela's SUV lands on it's passenger side on the opposite sidewalk while the truck is nose first against it, pinning the SUV to the building that stopped it.
"Christ, Angela," Constantine says as he opens his car door even before Dean brings it to a complete stop.
He doesn't even notice the driver of the other car getting out of its car, uninjured, until he hears Sam's exclamation of "Wings? What the hell is going on?" and a gun cocking. Constantine's unsurprised to see that Dean's the one with the gun drawn even though he's looking at his little brother oddly.
"I don't see any wings, Sam. You're sure you didn't scramble your brains permanently yesterday?" Dean asks.
Constantine doesn't have the time to correct him. "Thanks," he tells the angel half-breed as he starts scaling the SUV to find the best way to extract Angela.
"It's visible a long way off. Didn't think you made it a habit of letting them upset the balance like this, Constantine," the truck driver says, his wings rustling in irritation and anger.
"Tell it to your boss," Constantine growls back. "I need a knife to cut her out."
Dean tosses one up to him. "Hurry up, sirens are on the way already," he says.
Great, there's always a good samaritan around to fuck up your day even more.
<hr>
Once they have Angela's body out of the car, Constantine's relieved to see that it doesn't appear to be too broken. He's well aware of what an exorcism will do to his friend if she's mortally wounded. She and the demon inside remain unconscious during the process, but they wake just as Constantine grabs the chains to bind her. "Connie, she always did figure you were into bondage," it says before flinging him through the air. The chains are thrown as well and knock Dean over. Thankfully, Sam was standing out of its line of sight at the time and is able to knock Angela's body unconscious once more with the butt of a pistol.
"These chains really going to slow her down much?" Sam asks as they tie her up.
Constantine nods. "Blessed iron chains from the inquisition."
Dean laughs at that as they wrestle Angela into the back seat of the Impala. "Funny how even the worst Church actions are still holy, isn't it? Back to your place for the exorcism?"
Constantine takes in the blood from Angela's head wounds and shakes his head. "I have a friend whose place is closer. Plus she's a doctor."
"That's always a bonus."
**okay, the next part should be Sam??**
---------------------------------------------------
Random scene: Sam's run off after jesse and dean/constantine were unable to stop them. They're at a bar or something
"I still think you're wrong. I mean, you see those things. Does Sam really look any different from me or anyone else?"
Constantine takes his time to answer. "You mean besides the fact he gets visions that are linked to a demon?" Dean scowls and takes another shot of whiskey. "No, he doesn't, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything. Besides, he'd be a new breed."
"And I'm just supposed to believe you? You've admitted you suggested Dad raise another demon to fight this thing. That's just stupid."
"This line of work isn't for anyone who has something to lose."
"And you don't?"
"Well, I didn't. I'm still adjusting to the new status quo."
"So why didn't you help him back then? The people that have died-"
Constantine cuts him off. "Truth is, I didn't believe him. The balance would prohibit a full fledged demon from possessing someone. I figured it better to scare him back into hunting the freaks and occassional ghost when he had two kids that could get hurt dealing with the demonic."
"Turns out you were wrong."
"Turns out your pops wasn't being totally honest with me."
"He's not a demon."
Constantine sighs. He feels guilty that Sam has run away based on that. On top of it, frustration roils at the black and white nature that Dean views the supernatural with. "Look, I don't know exactly what your brother is - like I said, he's a new breed. No, right now, he's not demonic, but he is linked to it, which suggests to me his parentage. But the fact is that even the demons are of God if you go back to the right battle. Which basically makes your brother, and those like him, something that hasn't existed before and has upset the balance."
"What does it make them, exactly?" Dean asks, needing the clarification. His eyes begging for a way out of what his definition of good and evil means for his brother.
"It makes him an angel with a soul. Which by the rules, doesn't, and shouldn't, exist." Dean's shoulder relax visibly. John almost regrets having to snatch the hope from him. "None of which protects him. Souls are turned all the time. Worse, more than one angel has fallen. And none of the books talks about what would happen if one like him does fall."
THAT'S ALL FOLKS...AT LEAST FOR NOW.</lj-cut>
rating: teen
summary: Sam and Dean have trouble on a hunt and meet an unlikely ally. Winchester luck ensues.
spoilers: Early SPN s2 spoilers, beyond that, uncertain. A bit of a mix of Constantine movie and some of the Constantine comic book verses.
Disclaimer: None of the characters belong to me.
<hr>
<lj-cut text="and herein is the story.">
Chapter 1: Any Brawl You Walk Away From
The gun is on the floor across the room where the beast kicked it hours earlier. Or more likely minutes. They tended to drag out when some undead freak was using your ribs as a soccer ball. Dean was willing to bet Einstein didn’t factor pain into his theory of relativity. Dean’d ask Sammy, but Sam was currently sleeping off the steel post to the forehead that this <i>thing</i> had dealt out when they first entered the abandoned office building.
A growl tells Dean that the beasty has tired of Kick the Hunter. “An overrated game, I always did say,” Dean forces out past the pain of broken ribs and bruised muscles. The lack of answering repartee from Sam worries him, but he can’t let that throw him off his game. <i>Not if we’re going to get out of this alive</i>.
Dean grabs his knife from his ankle sheath just as the beast picks him up. Somehow he manages to keep hold of the knife as he thrown across the room and bounces off the cheesing wood paneling that serves for walls. As his face meets the threadbare adobe colored carpeting, Dean has time to be thankful that at least the abandoned office building was devoid of cubicles. He hates it when he gets plastic shards embedded in his back.
Glancing over his shoulder, he spots the beast slowly stomping towards him.
Wincing, Dean struggles to his knees and prepares to face the beast. Behind it, he can see through the front office window and the deserted LA street beyond it. And red lights… he shakes his head. That couldn’t be right. It ain’t Christmas. Concussions usually don’t make him see colored lights, but his head did bounce off the wall pretty hard. Opening and closing his eyes, he looks again to see the beast closing in steadily, but warily, and through the window, he now sees red and blue police lights flashing from the dash of a black SUV.
Great, now he has to find a way to get him and Sam out of this alive and try to watch out for a civilian as well. Could this night possibly get any worse?
The beast is close enough for Dean to feint throwing the knife. When it dodges, he scrambles across the room towards his gun. He almost makes it when the <i>thing</i>’s foot (or fist, did it matter? Both hurt like hell. He’d swear to that on any book you put in front of him) connects squarely with Dean’s hip causing him to fall and skid the rest of the way to the gun. And past it until his head cracks once more on the uglified wood paneling that seems to be required interior decoration by every soul sucking corporation in America.
Fumbling through the random darkness, bright lights, and waves of dizziness for the gun, he hears an unmistakeable sound. He’s only heard once before in his entire hunting career - Dragon’s Breath. Way too expensive for the brand of hunting that the Winchester’s do (and generally overkill), but very effective on just about every damn demon or evil fiend out there.
The beast wails and through the fuzziness of his concussed vision, Dean smiles when it lights up in blue flames and thrashes around the room in its death throes. Even as his brain begins saying how bad a flaming body moving around a room decorated with cheap wood paneling is.
His brain shuts up pretty quickly when Dean sees the flame thrower (metal – probably silver, and gold, or brass. Either way, very pawnable) pointed directly at him. He drops his gun and raises his hands.
At that point, his body decides it’s had enough and that if this day won’t stop going wrong, it’s going to end it for him by passing out in a heap. Yep, that’s it. Unconscious heap. Cause there’s no way in hell he’ll admit to fainting at the sight of the pissed off woman holding the flame thrower. None at all.
<hr>
“And you brought them here, why?” a man asks.
“They’re human. If I took them to a hospital, I’d have to come up with an explanation for their condition. The cause of which is currently burning down an abandoned building and wouldn’t have fit in a prison cell anyway,” a woman answers. “I figured you must have some connections to get them fixed up.”
Instincts tell Dean to stay still even if every fiber of his being wants to check on his little brother. At least from what the couple are saying, he assumes the chick had rescued his brother as well. <i>Better have.</i>
“Doesn’t mean much. They could have raised the thing you burned. Any clue what it was or did you shoot first?”
“It ate about a dozen homeless before I got a lead on its lair. I shot first. If they raised it, they didn’t have any control. It was attacking them when I got there.”
“When humans make deals with the devil, they usually end up bit, Angela.”
“They’re awake.”
Busted.
“I know. I wanted to see how long they’d play dead.”
Dean opens his eyes even as his hands check for any one of his many weapons. He comes up empty, not even the knife is left in the back of his pants.
A man in a black suit jacket, white shirt, and black tie stands above him with a nasty gun aimed directly at his head. <i>Wonder who his supplier is and how much one of those beauties cost</i>, Dean wonders as he focuses on the gun. The dude tilts his head and Dean looks over to see all of his weapons, and Sam’s from the looks of it, piled well out of reach on a cheap kitchen table.
Dean spots Sam prone, but slowly moving, on the floor on the other side of the rather bare room. Bare except for the incantations carved into the wood around the windowsills, the big ass cross over what Dean figures is the front door, and the two people holding weapons on them both. The chick has a normal gun. Police issued, he guesses as he remembers the lights from earlier. <i>You had to wonder if things could get any worse, didn’t you, idiot?</i>
“Dean, what’s going on?” Sam asks in a loopy voice.
“Just making friends with the nice man holding the kickass gun,” Dean answers. He knows from experience that Sam’s rolling his eyes.
“So what were you two boys doing in that building? Make a wrong turn looking for a rave?” the man asks.
“Originally? A family member hired us after their deranged cousin went missing. Which led us to look into that rash of homeless murders for fear that he’d been a victim. After that, getting thoroughly thrashed for our trouble until your friend showed up. Angela, is it? Thanks,” Dean said.
“He’s lying,” Angela says
“Really? You’re finely honed psychic ability inform you of that?” the man replies.
Psychic. A joke, surely. There’s no way that Dean has bad enough luck to stumble across a psychic when he already has one for a brother.
“No, my many years of interrogating perps on the job, Constantine.”
Dean looks over at Sam to see his brother’s wide eyes staring back in shock.
“Constantine? <i>The</i> John Constantine?” Sam asks with more than a little awe in his voice. Little brother’s head wasn’t too shook up if he remembered that. Course, it would be hard to forget. Bobby used to love to tell them stories about the famed John Constantine when they were younger.
“Who’s asking?” Constantine asks, readjusting his aim on Dean.
Dean raises his hands again. “Whoah, whoah, whoah. No one bad. We’re on your side.”
“I don’t have a side,” Constantine growls out in a low voice.
“So you don’t enjoy blasting demons back to hell?” Sam asks.
“Demons, angels, it really makes no difference to me,” Constantine answers, but he does lower the gun to his side.
Dean takes the opportunity to push up into a sitting position against the wall. “Glad you aren’t picky. I hope you don’t include humans in that because we kinda enjoy being alive.”
Sam grunts. “Speak for yourself. I think that thing broke my arm.”
“Again?” Dean shakes his head. “I keep telling you to tuck and roll, bro.”
Angela holsters her gun. “Well, I definitely brought them to the right place. They’re just as insane as you are.”
<hr>
--> could do this scene from sam's pov and then the next from john's still w/ revelation about angela seeing the vision? No interrupts flow too much. Maybe alternate chapters back and forth from dean to sam?
It’s a couple of hours later, though Dean won’t put a firm figure on it given the size of his concussion and the really nice whiskey that Constantine is sharing for pain relief. Constantine is currently wrapping Sam’s wrist up after deciding it probably isn’t broken (while it isn’t bending oddly, it’s not bending without Sam screaming either. But they really don’t have the cash for a hospital visit at the moment, and most of their IDs are currently parked on a lot with a burning building on the other side of LA).
“So how do you know John?” the lady cop asks.
“I wouldn’t mind knowing that myself,” Constantine says.
Sam, much loopier from the whiskey and aspirin that Constantine had poured down his throat, answers. “Growing up, Bobby used to tell us all sorts of stories about you and Pastor Jim. Said the three of you cut quite a path together back in the day.”
“Bobby Singer?” Constantine asks with a frown. “Thought he went into the wrecking business.”
Dean tops off his glass of whiskey as he answers. “He did. Still collects a lot of occult books and gives us a discount on car repairs. By the way, my car gets towed, you are so paying to get it out,” he tells Angela.
She rolls her eyes at him and starts to say something, but pauses and puts a hand to her head. At the same time, Sam yells and falls to the floor in classic vision mode.
“What the hell?” Constantine says as he catches Angela before she falls to the floor. Dean crosses the room where his brother is writhing beside the stained bed he was lying on.
“Jess. Dean, I saw Jess,” Sam croaks out before passing out.
“A little help here?” Dean asks. Constantine leads Angela into the little kitchen and gets her situated at the table before coming to help lift Sam back on the bed.
“That happen often?”
“More than I like,” Dean says. “Pretty stupid for the psychic friends network to make him helpless while yakking about the future in my opinion. What about her?”
“I’m right here,” Angela says. “And I’m fine.”
“So what? Bleedover from the boy then?” Constantine asks.
“I don’t know, John. You tell me. I haven’t been doing this very long,” Angela answers. “God, my head is killing me though.”
“Wait, she really is a psychic?” Dean asks
“Psychic enough to almost create hell on Earth,” Constantine says, earning a glare from Angela. “His visions bring you to LA?”
Dean shakes his head. “We really were hired by a loon’s family.”
Constantine pours a glass of whiskey. “So what’d he see. Sounded like he said a name.”
Yeah, a name. Sam’d been going on about catching glimpses of Jess in dirty gas station mirrors and unwashed windows for months. Dean had hoped that giving his brother things to hunt and a goal (the death of the demon that killed Mom, Jess, and now Dad) would be enough to help Sam through the grief. Ever since Ellicot possessed him in the asylum though, he’d been seeing Jess (and occasionally other dead people). Dean had no intention of telling Constantine his brother was slowly cracking up.
“Jess,” Angela states.
“What?” Dean asks, playing dumb. There’s no way. As far as Dean can tell, there’s only one good thing about Sam’s visions, the thrashing generally keeps bystanders from hearing what he might whimper.
Angela takes Constantine’s glass from him and drinks it before answering. “Jess, he called her Jess. At least I think we were seeing the same thing. He was there. They both were. The girl was about to kill you,” Angela says as she looks at Dean. “He was pleading with her not to and he called her Jess. And sweetheart.”
Dean looks back over at his unconscious brother. Looks like Sammy had started keeping secrets.
<hr>
Dean pretends not to notice when Constantine tells Angela that she should leave. He waits till they step outside the apartment before grabbing his glass (always have an alibi if you’re eavesdropping, Dean-o) and following them.
“You’d think you’d want the person who just gave you a lead on the Dynamic Duo in there to stick around,” Angela says. Dean’s glad to see that the door’s been left open a crack.
“I’ve told you before, it’s not healthy to around me.”
“I can take care of myself, John.”
“Good, because I can’t. Do me a favor and see if you can get their car towed over here or something.”
Dean can pretty much imagine the look Angela is giving Constantine right now. He’s gotten that look a time or two from Sam. Sam had given Dad that look an awful lot.
“At least tell me what’s going on,” Angela pleads.
A slight thud and plaster drifting down from the ceiling tells Dean that Constantine just punched the wall.
“If they’re who I think they are, you’re better off not knowing. In fact, you’d be better off taking a vacation to the other side of the world right about now.”
“If that’s the case, why aren’t you telling them to get lost.”
“I gotta satisfy my death wish somehow now that I don’t smoke. The car, Angela. And try to make sure no one searches it, or it’ll never get it released.”
Creaking floorboards send Dean fleeing to the kitchen sink to fill his glass with water.
“Hear enough?” Constantine asks.
Dean’s good at lying generally. Used to get away with it to pretty much everyone except Dad and Pastor Jim. Something tells him that Constantine falls into that same category, except, well, you know, alive.
“You seem to know what’s going on here. Mind clueing a brother in?”
Constantine drops into the kitchen chair and rubs his face. “God, I’d kill for a cigarette.” He looks over at the bed. “He still out?” When Dean nods, Constantine grabs the bottle of whiskey and takes a swig. “I don’t know all of it, but knowing that your last name is Winchester is enough.”
“How?”
“John Winchester is the only man I know that would leave his kids with either Murphy or Singer. Most parents would rather let Dick Cheney play baby sitter than those two.”
“There’s nothing wrong with –“
“Son, I didn’t say there was. Most parents avoid our ilk instinctually.”
Dean avoids the implications of that reasoning as he sips his water while leaning on the sink. “You still haven’t said what you think is going on.”
“And I won’t until we hear what your brother has to say. In the meantime, the salt is in the cabinet behind you. Won’t hurt to line the doors and windows.”
Looking at the protective runes and scriptures carved into the door frame and window sills is when Dean starts to get goose bumps. Salt over the thresholds is like pouring water over a gas stove once the gas main has been turned off. If anything demonic can come uninvited through the barriers already there, salt sure as hell isn’t going to stop them.
Busy work has always made Dean more nervous than just plain waiting.
<hr>
She can feel him. He feels the same even though she’s altered. She still has the memories though, the taste of love. Now it tastes bitter. Betrayed. Left out.
“His fault,” the darkness whispers. She agrees. She’s not entirely sure why it took her so long to do so.
It doesn’t matter though. He’ll pay for what he did. She’s got the perfect punishment in mind too.
“Such a good girl,” the voices whisper. She basks in the praise. “We’ll never leave you.”
<hr>
Chapter 2: Nobody’s Perfect
Constantine keeps his promise and remains silent until Sam wakes up. Dean spends that hour thoroughly bored. At least at a motel, he’d have cable to watch while he cleaned his guns and knives (or at least the ones that they have on them. Hopefully Angela does manage to rescue the Impala). Here, he’s stuck with grainy network channels. Worse, it’s daytime TV. He’s half convinced that Dr. Phil is the spawn of Satan.
“Eung..Dean?”
“Right here, Sammy. Here,” he instructs as he places two painkillers in Sam’s palm. After digging through Sam’s coat and finding the mostly empty bottle, Dean’s convinced that Sam’s been hiding his visions recently.
Sam dry swallows the pills before squinting his eyes open and looking around the room. “Constantine’s. Lady cop saved our butts and brought us here before you got a call from the Psychic Friends Network,” Dean summarizes. That makes Sam sit up fast and grab Dean painfully on two of his many bruises.
“Jess. I saw Jess. We’ve got to get to her.”
“Whoa, sport,” Dean says. Worry and fear make the whiskey in his stomach sour. “We don’t have to go anywhere. Jess is dead.” Sam’s face crumbles.
“What did you see?” Constantine asks.
“No, he’s right, it must’ve been the concussion,” Sam says as he sinks back onto the bed.
“Humor me,” Constantine dryly insists.
Sam looks from Dean to Constantine and back again before repeating what Angela had said earlier. “It was Jess. She was on a playground. She was so happy. And then she had Dean and was going to kill him. It doesn’t make any sense. It had to be the concussion.”
“And Jess, how did she die?” Constantine asks.
Sam jumps off the bed and sprints in the direction of the toilet. Dean winces. The painkillers probably didn’t mix too well with the earlier aspirin and whiskey. “Same way as our mother did,” Dean answers.
Constantine looks towards the bathroom. “He was there for that one too, wasn’t he?”
“We both were. Carried him out of the first one and dragged him out when Jess was burning up a year ago. If you’ve got an epiphany to share with us about this damn demon, speak up.”
“Did you see her body?”
“I was four, no, I didn’t see my mother’s body.”
“He means Jess,” Sam answers from where he’s leaning against the door frame of the bathroom. “No, there was nothing left.”
“What’s your dad have to say about all this?” Constantine asks.
Dean’s getting pissed at all the questions. “Nothing. He died of a heart attack just after we all survived being run over by a demon driven semi.”
That news shocks Constantine silent for a few seconds. “So he never got the Colt?”
Dean glances over at Sam, but so far, his brother is winning the contest of wills with gravity. “No, we found it. Five bullets, one massive car crash, an out of body experience, and our dad dying, it kinda got –“
“Lost,” Sam finishes.
“Lost? You just lost one of the most powerful and effective weapons against demons,” Constantine restates.
“Yeah, that about covers it,” Dean replies. “It wasn’t the finest moment in Winchester hunting history.”
Constantine rubs his face and then begins to pace between the bedroom and kitchen. “Your girlfriend - what was her full name?”
“Jessica Moore. Why?” Sam answers.
Constantine turns and heads for the apartment door. “Stay here, I’ll be back.”
“If you’re going after that demon, or information on it, we’re coming with you,” Sam says, as he stumbles away from the bathroom.
“No, you’re not. Both of you can barely stand and you’ll only draw more unwanted attention to me than normal. Stay here, don’t invite anyone or anything in. Understand?” Constantine’s glare reminds Dean a lot of Missouri. Feels like they both can look right through you and see the mischief you’re planning.
“We’re not newbies, Constantine. We’ve been doing this since we could walk,” Dean answers.
“No, you’ve been chasing werewolves and poltergeists since you were kids. This is demons, as in the big leagues. I told your father he was an idiot to go after this thing with anything less than magic and creatures of his own, but he didn’t want to get his soul, or yours I suspect, dirty. If you aren’t going to do what I say, get the fuck out of my town before you get anyone I know hurt.”
With that, Constantine slams the door.
<hr>
Constantine walks around the block to a diner to get a cup of coffee. After paying, he pulls out his cell phone to call Angela.
<i>Dodson</i>.
“It’s Constantine. Have you got their car yet?”
<i>I just got to the impound lot, John. No, I don’t have it yet.</i>
“When you do, could you stop by Joe’s Diner? I want to have a look at it before I go asking stupid questions from folks that don’t like me.”
<i>What happened to get the hell out of town?</i>
“Honestly, that still applies. But drop off the car here before you leave on vacation.”
He isn’t surprised when she hangs up on him. He knows she hates being kept out of the loop, but he hopes that for once she’ll take his advice. Hell, he just might knock her out and put in a box addressed to Bora Bora if she doesn’t. John Winchester always did give him the willies, and he’s not getting any warm fuzzy feelings off his two boys.
It takes about an hour before Angela shows up with the car. Constantine whistles out loud when he sees it. He’s not normally someone who cares much about cars, but even he can appreciate the beauty that is the 1967 Chevrolet Impala. In black to boot.
“Park it in the alley,” Constantine tells her when she pulls to the curb outside the diner.
“Okay, so what’s so special about the car? Is it possessed?”
Constantine just rolls his eyes. “Keys?”
When he pops the trunk, the space is much smaller than should be in a car this size. He hands two bags of close and a large container of salt to Angela and then starts feeling around. Soon his hand hits the hidden switch and the false bottom rises.
“Holy shit. No wonder they wanted it back so fast.”
Constantine nods in agreement. The trunk holds a large array (even by his standards) of shotguns, pistols, and rifles, plus knives, stakes, chains, gas cans filled with…yep, holy water, and tools for smelting bullets.
“Should be a journal in here somewhere. John Winchester always carried a ratty old journal,” he mumbles. Finally, he goes around and gets in the car. He finds the journal peeking out from under the passenger side seat.
Flipping through it, he finds information on all the normal things that hunters would go after: succubi, werewolves, ghosts, and the like. A page here and there describes other odd fires that Winchester had followed up on.
The wind blows just right through the car and causes him to shiver. It’s been oddly cold for April in LA. Not enough to be quite out of the norm, but enough that even with his suit jacket he gets the chills now and again. From the way that Angela’s rubbing her hands together, she’s feeling the temperature as well.
“I should let you get back to work,” Constantine says. “Thanks for bringing the car over.”
She raises an eyebrow. “Well, I did what you said and took some vacation. So I can drive you wherever you need to go.”
“I was dead serious about what I said before, Angela. This isn’t safe. Especially with your abilities.”
She just crosses her arms. “Abilities you have as well. And that kid in there. I can help.”
“That kid has been dealing with this stuff almost since he was born. You’ve been doing it a few years. These are demons, we’re talking about.”
“I thought you said only half-breeds could get onto our plane.”
He gets out and shuts the Impala’s trunk. “Technically, that’s true, but there’s always a loophole. I’m not sure what this thing is, but from what I’ve heard, it’s not a normal half-breed.” With that, he pulls out his wallet and gives Angela twenty dollars.
“What’s this for? Supplies?”
He shakes his head and gets into the car. “Cab fare,” he tells her as he slams the door shut. He hates driving in LA, but he hates the idea of anyone else getting hurt because of him even more.
<hr>
Sam's rather relieved once Constantine leaves.
<hr>
Traffic in LA is a bitch, but Constantine manages to reach the planetarium of the Jesuit university just in time for the matinee. He’d of preferred not to have to sit through the entire show, but he resigns himself to an hour in a dark theater. Maybe it wouldn’t have been such a bad idea to have brought Angela along after all.
It takes a while for the room to clear after the show, but soon he’s alone with the speaker.
“You show a lot of nerve showing up after what happened to Gabriel,” the lecturer says.
Everyone’s still a little tetchy that Gabriel was made human for trying to bring Mamnon to Earth while Constantine actually managed to erase the sins damning him hell. He just shrugs it off. Half-breeds (angels or demons, makes no difference really. One just causes less trouble than the other) aren’t that different from humans – most have a chip on their shoulder about something. “Gabriel made a choice, Sariel. Are you going to hold that against me?” He looks up to where the heavens are still projected on the ceiling. “Still teaching man about how the progress of the heavens, eh?”
“What brings you here, Constantine?”
“I need information about a soul that passed about a year ago. Jessica Moore.”
Sariel’s eyes flash silver and his wings ruffle. It’s impossible for Constantine to tell if it’s in irritation or not. “Why?”
Constantine stands and walks down the aisle closer to the archangel. “Well, two people saw her die. And now two psychics have had visions that she’ll kill someone. It doesn’t add up.” Or it does. But he doesn’t like the sum he’s getting off of it.
“And you’re not telling me everything,” Sariel accuses.
“I don’t know everything.”
“Humility in the great John Constantine. Miracles do happen.” Sariel closes his eyes briefly. “She died, but her soul was, how would you say, <i>redirected</i>.”
“By the same thing that killed her?”
“I’m not the omniscient one, John. That’s all I know.”
<hr>
Sariel’s news bothers John more than he’d like to admit. Not quite as bad as learning that Gabriel had decided to help Mamnon start hell on Earth early, but definitely not good. The notes in Winchester’s journal are as sketchy as he remembers, and it’s been five years since he’d talked with the man.
Even after twenty years of hunting, Winchester hadn’t been able to tell Constantine anything for him to be able to help. Well, beyond telling the Winchester patriarch that what he was fighting was big and bad and he’d have to get his hands dirty if he wanted to live through it. It looked like he’d ignored the advice.
Normals getting involved in exorcisms and hunting never ended well in Constantine’s opinions. Not that it ended all that well for those who weren’t normal. Seemed like Sam Winchester wasn’t quite normal. Which only peaked Constantine’s curiosity since there’d been no mention of that when John Winchester came calling.
<blockquote><i>
“It killed your wife, but the three of you got out without a scratch?” Constantine asked, incredulous.
Winchester shrugged. “My arms were burned from trying to put the fire out and get to her, but yeah.” He slammed back his shot of whiskey and grabbed the bottle to pour another.
Constantine pushed his own glass away and lit up a cigarette. “In my experience, that’s not how these things operate. Your boys – they’re both…normal?”
“Normal as you can be growing up hunting these damn monsters.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, John, but I haven’t heard of anything like it. Sorry to hear that Murphy sent you all this way for nothing.”
“Wasn’t out of the way. There was another one in a town eighty miles south of here last week. Finished up and figured I might as well see if the legendary John Constantine had anything to offer.”
</blockquote>
He’d been impressed with Winchester’s reputation, but dubious of his means. It was a miracle he and his sons had survived unscathed as long as they had.
That or there was a very patient demon with a very specific plan. Constantine cursed at the traffic impatiently. He had a feeling that the Winchester boys were running out of time.
<hr>
When he arrives back at his apartment, Dean, Sam, and Angela are sitting at the wooden kitchen table eating fast food. “What the hell, I told you not to let anyone in!” Constantine almost yells.
The three exchange glances before Angela speaks up. “They needed food. Man can’t live on whiskey alone. There’s a bag in the fridge for you.”
Constantine pins Sam and Dean with a glare. “The next time I give you an order, you’d better follow it. If not, get the hell out of here right now. Your car’s parked in the alley.” He throws the keys to the Impala on the table and stalks to the bathroom.
When he comes back, all three are still there.
“So?” Dean asks, as if nothing just happened. “Find anything during your illegal search of my car?”
Constantine grabs the food from the fridge and sits down. After he chews a bite of the cold burger, he takes the journal out of his jacket pocket and tosses it on the table. “Since I saw your Dad five years ago, it doesn’t look like he’d learned anything new.”
Sam shakes his head. “That stuff’s all old. He took off on his own a while back and started to find a pattern.”
“What kind of pattern?”
“Weather changes, cattle mutilations, crop circles. That sort of thing,” Dean answers.
“All of these would happen during the weeks before another person was killed by fire. By the demon. And, they all happened on the day that an infant turned six months old,” Sam adds.
The bad feeling in Constantine’s stomach gets worse. There’d been an outbreak of some cattle virus at one of the stockyards outside the city in the paper this last weekend. And it was awful chilly in LA for April.
“We actually stopped one just before the wreck,” Dean says in a subdued voice. Suddenly, Constantine knows where quite a few of the bullets for the Colt must have gone.
“Dad said the Colt was the only way to stop this thing. Was he right?” Sam asks.
Constantine watches the way that Dean’s lost interest in his food. There’s something to this story that he’s not getting. “It’s the safest way. Only real way your father was equipped to deal with it.”
“Meaning what exactly?” Sam asks.
“As a last resort, demons can be summoned to fight other demons. It’s dangerous though,” Constantine replies. He can feel them behind him. He wonders if Angela and Sam can see his ghosts or not.
Angela’s eyes widen with shock. “You’ve done that?”
Constantine doesn’t answer. “There may be another way though. Partly it depends on what this demon wants. Did your dad find anything out about that?”
Sam’s entire body pulls in on itself and he speaks so soft that Constantine has to strain to hear it. “It said that it had plans for me and the kids like me.”
<i>Kids like me</i>. That meant that all of the kids were like Sam. “Like what? All of you have flashes of the future? Doesn’t seem like too much of a threat there to me.”
“They’re not all like Sam. One was a telekinetic. There’s another who can make people do whatever he tells them,” Dean explains.
Constantine wishes he hadn’t eaten his burger now. The feeling in his stomach was only getting worse. He checks his watch. Eight pm. Midnite’s place should be open by now. “Okay then. Sam, you up for a ride?”
“Where are we going?” Dean asks.
“We are going nowhere. You and Angela are staying here. Sam and I are going to visit a friend.”
“No,” Dean says. “Look, we appreciate the help, but I’m not going to let you just take my brother. Bad enough you drove my car.”
John starts to argue, then waves his head. “Fine, I guess we’re all going. Good thing you have four seats.” Thankfully, the door test should keep Dean from getting into Midnite’s. Hopefully Angela will elect to stay with him.
<hr>
The demon sniffs at the air to taste the ether. The game has changed. The boys have added a player to the game. Smelling again, it smiles. More than one player. This should be delicious.
Constantine’s familiar. A bane to their kind, but an ignorant one in this.
It really doesn’t matter though. The Colt’s out of the game and there’s nothing else left on Earth with the power to hurt it. At least, not in it’s true form. Losing meatsacks can be disorienting and a hassle, but it only slows him.
The plans in motion and nothing’s going to stop it. Certainly not an exorcist with a new lease on his soul that’s lost the taste for no holds bar fighting.
<hr>
Chapter 3: Can You See It?
The ride to Midnite’s was spent listening to Constantine expound on the rules of the nightclub.
From the sound of it, it’s nowhere Dean wants to be and he definitely doesn’t want to let Sam walk in there. At least not without at least five shotguns full of rock salt and silver. “So let me see if I’ve got this straight. This place is full of demons –“
“Half-breed demons,” Constantine corrects.
“<i>Demons</i> doing whatever they like and we’re just supposed to walk past them” Dean finishes.
“Papa Midnite’s club is neutral ground, as is he. No matter what any half-breed in there says to me, I’ve never been tempted to break the rules. Midnite isn’t a man you want to cross,” Constantine says. “Not that you’ll have to worry about it.”
“What do you mean by that?” Dean demands.
In the rearview mirror, Dean sees Constantine smirk. “If you can get in, follow the rules.” No matter how much Sam and Dean badgered him, Constantine refuses to elaborate. Angela just sits silently beside him.
To Dean, the outside of the nightclub appears like any other any big city in America. Slightly run down neighborhood, neon signs on the outside, stip joints a couple of doors away, and bouncer as soon as you enter the door.
Except this bouncer is holding up a card.
“A rabbit on a bicycle,” Constantine says. The large, towering bouncer puts the card down and opens the velvet rope for him to enter before locking it behind him.
“I don’t know if I can do this,” Sam whispers to Dean.
“It’s the only way to get in,” Constantine says from where he’s waiting.
Dean doesn’t particularly want Sam to do this either, but Constantine seems to think this Midnite might have some insight on how to kill the demon. “Go ahead, we’ll never know till you try.”
“But Dean,” Sam starts. Dean just pushes him forward.
The bouncer holds up a card and Dean holds his breath.
Sam squints his eyes and pauses for what seems like ten minutes. “A bear on a mountain?” The bouncer puts the card down and opens the rope.
Constantine’s grinning like an idiot as he leans on the wall and Dean’s aware of the fact that a line is growing behind them. He looks over at Angela, but she’s silent with her arms crossed. No help there.
Dean looks at the waiting card and then at his brother. It’s stupid, but what the hell. Worst that will happen is he sits out here chewing on his nails and waiting for Sammy. “Frogs on a park bench,” Dean says in his bullshit voice.
He almost falls over when the guy opens the velvet rope one more time. He smirks when he sees that Constantine has lost a bit of balance too.
“Purple chickens on a see-saw,” Angela adds and then she too is in line following Constantine through the club.
Constantine had tried to prepare them. Dean’s half convinced that the man either drugged him or he has serious brain damage. He’s seen a lot of things in his life, but this is unreal. The music and lights and disco balls are like any other club, but everything else just makes his skin crawl. Especially when he accidentally meets the eyes of some of the other <i>patrons</i>. Yellow, red, ice blue. Smiles full of fangs. Drinks of the color red that they have to be blood. Or at least contain blood. What he hopes are orgies on tables.
It’s not long before Dean glues his eyes to the back of his brother’s coats just to preserve his own sanity. It takes a lot of strength to not reach out and grab onto it for dear life.
A door opens and the cacophony of music (and screams) dies away. Dean savors the silence and the feel of his skin settling back into its proper places before he looks around. The room (office? Den?) is decorated in dark colors and wood. A slim black man is dressed in a loud shirt and brown suede that reminds Dean of the disco era. When he stands in greeting, Dean revises his opinion. He exudes an aura of power that is matched by his muscled physique. Suddenly, Constantine’s advice to follow this man’s rules seems like a good idea.
“John, what brings you by unannounced?” the man asks, a light accent that Dean can’t quite place. It’s different than the few Hatian voodoo priests he’s met.
“We’ve got a slight <i>problem</i>, Midnite,” Constantine answers.
Midnite chuckles deeply. “You always have problems, friend. Maybe if you were nicer to people. Aren’t you going to introduce your guests?”
“Sam and Dean Winchester,” Constantine answers. Dean notices that he doesn’t bother to introduce the lady cop. Looking at her, she either doesn’t mind the omission or she’s been here before.
The witch doctor doesn’t react at all upon hearing their names and just waits for Constantine to continue. “Sam’s girlfriend died a year ago. Murdered by a demon. Except Sariel says the soul got <i>misplaced</i>.”
“Demons aren’t allowed up here, John, and souls don’t get lost. Maybe she wasn’t entirely truthful with the young man about her life,” Midnite answers.
Dean’s getting impatient. “It’s a demon alright. Has the possession part down full. We’ve killed a couple of its kids, but the smoky bastard left it’s host the one time we cornered it.” He doesn’t mention that it had been in Dad at the time.
Midnite focuses in on Dean then. “What’s he even doing in here?”
Constantine looks at Dean and then looks over at Sam. “I’m pretty sure it’s his brother’s doing. That or I’m really losing my touch.”
“Come here, boy,” Midnite says, gesturing to Sam. Dean reaches out to stop him, but Constantine knocks his arm down as Sam steps forward. When Midnite stands, Dean’s surprised to see that he’s just as tall as his brother. He grabs Sam’s chin and then whispers a few words that Dean can’t hear.
After what feel like a few skipped heartbeats, Sam falls down to one knee gasping and Midnite stumbles back into the table. Ignoring Midnite, after all, he can always kill the guy later if he’s hurt Sam, Dean’s immediately at Sam’s side. His gut clenches when he realizes that Sam’s sobbing soundlessly.
Peripherally, he’s aware of Angela kneeling down at his side while Constantine helps Midnite to his chair.
“You should find some new friends to take your <i>problems</i> to, John,” Midnite says. “There’s whiskey in that cabinet, Detective Dodson. I think we could all do with a shot.”
“Oh, God, Dean. It’s my fault. I should have stopped it,” Sam gasps. “Jesse was so good, she doesn’t deserve this.”
Silence fills the room as Angela pours a glass of whiskey and hands it to Dean. Sam’s still pretty incoherent, but between his emotions and previous injuries, Dean manages to get him to drink the liquor without too much force. He stays at Sam’s side, but locks a glare on Midnite. “What did you do to my brother, asshole?”
Midnite laughs out loud at him. “Boy’s almost as insolent as you were at that age, John.”
Constantine shoots Dean a look before turning his attention back to Midnite. “What happened?”
“He’s not like you or your friend, for one. His gift,” Midnite pauses. “I don’t know exactly what it is. But I can feel that thing you said was a demon through it.”
“Sam’s not evil,” Dean protests.
Midnite shakes his head. “I didn’t say that. But he’s not natural either. This thing that’s plagued your family, it knows exactly where you are all the time. I don’t think it goes any further than that – it can’t control him or see through him. At least not yet.”
“The Colt’s gone. Got any specifics on this thing so I know how to fight it?” Constantine asks.
Midnite shakes his head. “The Colt’s not gone. Is it, Dean?”
Constantine looks at Dean. “What does he mean?”
Sam’s so ready to take the blame for everything, but there’s no one to blame for this but himself. If he’d been stronger, or if he’d given into the Reaper earlier, everything might be different. “The wreck I told you about. I was dying. Dad gave the Colt to the demon in exchange for my life.” The words taste just as bitter coming out as they have echoing through his skull for months.
“Sounds like it’s as good as gone then,“ Constantine says after a moment. “I still need to know how to fight this thing, Midnite.”
“Without its name, or the Colt, there’s only one way,” Midnite says.
“Solomon’s Ring has been missing for a long time,” Constantine replies.
Angela speaks up for the first time. “Solomon’s Ring, but that’s just a story.”
“You see and hear demons and angels every day, Angela. Do you really want to debate which Bible stories are true or not?” Constantine asks. “You had one of Solomon’s Keys in your trunk. I don’t suppose –“
Dean cuts him off. “I think if Bobby had found the ring, he’d of mentioned it.”
Midnite walks over to the door. “Sorry I couldn’t be more help, John. Now I think you’d better get your friend out of here before the place fills up too much. No sense in attracting new problems,” he says with wave in the direction of Sam.
Personally, it’s the first good idea that Dean’s heard all night. “Come, little brother. Remember to do all your vomiting BEFORE you get in my car.”
<hr>
They drop Angela off at her own car and then return to Constantine’s apartment. Dean would prefer to hightail it out of the city, but Sam’s not in any shape to be traveling tonight. If he’s truthful, Dean’s not either.
Still, once he gets Sam settled, Dean joins Constantine in the kitchen. “You know something that you aren’t sharing.”
“Seems to me that we’re all doing that.”
“Well, now you know everything. So spill.”
Constantine snorts. “Yeah, but not because you’ve told me anything. Your dad gave more than just the Colt in return for your life, didn’t he?”
Dean clenches his fists. It would be so easy to swing, but there’s still the chance that this asshole might know something that will help. “Yeah. So?”
“Your Dad was a fool, but not an idiot. Hold on,” Constantine says firmly when Dean takes a step forward. “I don’t mean that as an insult. Just stating that facts. Anyone who gets involved in this business is one kind of a fool or another. I doubt he handed the gun and his soul over without making sure the deal was done. Without talking to both of you.”
<blockquote><i>Yeah, yeah, I’m just a little tired. Hey, son, would you mind getting me a cup of caffeine?”
…
Don’t be scared, Dean.</i></blockquote>
“Or maybe he didn’t tell both of you. Maybe he just told you, the eldest, the strongest?” Constantine suggests.
Dean closes his eyes and clenches his teeth. He’s been trying to tell himself that those words were all a lie. Another planned deception by that evil bastard to torture his family. <i>Demons lie</i>. It’s what they are. What they do.
“What did he say, Dean?”
“It’s not true!”
“What did he say?”
<blockquote><i>Don’t be afraid, Dean. He’s still your brother even if he isn’t my son. He’s human. He’s good. Protect Sammy, Dean. Whatever you do, protect your little brother.</i></blockquote>
The words echo in his head so much that he doesn’t even realize he’s said them out loud until Constantine curses. “Fuck. Well, that explains the link Midnite felt.”
“It’s not true,” Dean insists.
Constantine just turns away and looks out the window over the city street. “Half-breeds exist all over this world. How do you think they came to be, Dean?”
“Sam’s not a demon.”
“I didn’t say he was. But he’s not completely human. It doesn’t matter, though. He’s not evil.”
“He’s not a demon.”
Constantine turns back and drops into a chair. He looks at the bottle of whiskey, but he doesn’t pour any more drinks. “The others like Sam. Have you met any of them?”
Dean doesn’t like where this is going. “Yeah.” Constantine doesn’t say anything else, he just waits. “Max was this telekinetic. Completely frakked up by his abusive parents.”
“Again, I’m getting that there’s more to this story than you’re telling me.”
“He was fixing to kill me. Sam stopped him.” Dean swallows. “And his mom died the same way ours did. Then there were these twins a couple months back. Were split up in the foster care system, but both had some Obi-wan power of compulsion thing. Except one went Vader and the other went Luke. After killing a lot of people, Luke killed Vader, just like the movie.”
Telling it, Dean realizes what was missing. Yeah, the mothers were all killed by the same yellow eyed demon, but the kids. What they did, they did it all on their own. No clouds of black smoke after anyone died. Just plain human deaths. “They died though. They weren’t demons,” he insists.
“I can’t make you believe it, Dean. But you know the stories as well as I do. Since the dawn of man, there’s stories of women ravaged by a mysterious night visitor. Giving birth to something other than human. You’re dad wasn’t lying. Sam’s your brother. But he wasn’t your father’s son. Or maybe he is, but not entirely.”
Constantine leaves then. Dean stares out the window and wonders how much more night is left. Somehow, he doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to sleep tonight. Hell, maybe never again.
<hr>
She finds him easily, just where the shadows said he’d be. He’s sleeping. He usually is when she comes to him. Occasionally she’ll follow during the day and haunt his vision, but at night it’s easier. He can’t get away from her in his dreams.
<i>Jesse. I’ve missed you so much. Don’t ever leave me again.</i>
Never, she says. There’s a way we can be together always. Just tell me that’s what you want.
<i>It’s all I’ve ever wanted, sweetheart. Us. Together forever. Whatever it takes.</i>
I won’t let you forget that this is what you wanted, Sam. Everything I do, I do it for you.
As dawn casts its light over LA, she leaves him then. In the end, they’ll be together. She’ll get to watch his punishment for all eternity. It’s only what he deserves for letting her die, after all.
<hr>
Chapter 4: You Knew Better
Constantine wakes to the same generalized anxiety that he went to bed with. This whole situation is bad with a capital B, but now it’s in his town and so it’s his problem. Things would be easier if he thought that maybe he could end it before it started by killing Sam, but well, that’s a bad idea for a number of reasons. One, it would probably mean killing Dean as well. Two, he’s not really sure that Sam wouldn’t count as human enough to damn him to hell again if Constantine did kill the boy.
Well, eliminating options is what formulating a battle plan is all about.
Both Winchesters have at least recovered energy if not health when they start moving around. Coffee is shared with words, but Constantine can feel Dean’s glare on him the entire time.
Which only serves to remind Constantine of last night’s puzzle when Dean managed to read the card. One more thing to keep an eye on.
He’s alone in the kitchen when someone knocks on the front door. Opening it to find Angela on the other side is unsurprising. He leaves the door open and walks away, fully expecting she’ll follow.
His sense of unease and anxiety ratchet up a notch when he turns and she’s still on the opposite side of the threshold. “A report came in from another precinct that matched the description of Sam’s girlfriend.”
“Which you recognized how?” Constantine asks. “Oh, right, you saw the same vision. They’re almost ready I think.”
She shakes her head. “Your apartment is a tad crowded with four. I’ll wait downstairs in my car and then drive us all to the sighting.”
“Christo,<<is this="this" in="in" fact="fact" the="the" correct="correct" term?="term?" i="I" know="know" there’s="there’s" some="some" debate="debate" as="as" to="to" if="if" sam="sam" and="and" dean="dean" say="say" it="it" right="right">>” Constantine says, praying he’s wrong. Angela’s eyes turn black and she smiles evilly.
“Always the smart one, Johnny boy. I guess the question is, will you be smart enough.”
Constantine’s running for the door even as she starts talking, but she takes off running just before he reaches it. “Fuck! Hurry up, or I’m hot wiring your car,” he yells at the Winchesters as he starts grabbing exorcism supplies.
He’s not having another ghost following him around if he can help it.
<hr>
The Winchesters move fast even when banged up, he'll give them that. He has his supplies in a bag and is headed to the door when they both follow.
"What's going on?" Sam asks.
"Angela showed up at the door possessed, that's what," he answers as the run down the stairs. "Keys," he tells Dean, with his hand out.
Dean gives a little laugh. "Oh no, yesterday was a one time event because I was too concussed to know what was happening. You aren't driving my car."
"He knows the town better than we do, Dean," Sam points out as he gets in the backseat.
"Good, he can navigate from shotgun. I'm driving," Dean says.
Constantine sees Angela's black SUV pass the alley so he doesn't bother arguing anymore. Slamming the door, he yells at Dean, "Follow her!"
He's impressed with Dean's driving. Even with the older car, he has no problem catching up to and staying with the newer SUV. Constantine keeps his eyes locked on the car so he's surprised when Sam hits the back of his seast and starts yelling in pain.
"Jesse. And kids. A schoolyard I think. They're all dead. Dying. We've got to turn around," Sam says.
Constantine stops Dean from turning the wheel, but just barely. "No, keep following her. It's a distraction."
"Sorry, dude, but a group of innocent kids trumps one possessed cop any day," Dean says as he tries to push Constantine away.
"Think about it. It's Sunday morning. What schoolyard is going to have kids in it right now? I promise, as soon as exorcise that asshole out of Angela, we'll stop it. I swear," Constantine says. Dean glares at him, but the Impala speeds up and continues to follow Angela's SUV.
"No," Sam yells. "We have to stop it. And save Jesse, whatever the hell's going on with her. Dean, please!"
"Keep driving, Dean. Sam, do you even know where this is happening at? If we don't know where to go, it's pointless to stop following the one demon we do have a lead on." Sam shakes his head, but Constantine has an idea. It's not anything he's ever tried before. Personally, he hates visions, but that may be because he's always had to induce them pharmacologically. But if it's possible to pass between the planes and see what's in hell, surely he can tap into what Sam's seeing.
Not that he really wants to. It's bad enough to see every halfbreed demon and angel on the street; seeing what's going to happen in the future hasn't ever been on his high list of things to do.
Still, he digs through his bag and finds a vial of holy water. He wets his left hand and then turns around in the seat. "Keep driving, Dean," he repeats and then he slaps his wet hand on Sam's forehead while holding his neck still with the other.
<blockquote>Time slows. <i>St. John's Academy</i> reads a sign on the building in front of him. There's a schoolyard at its side and silence hangs in the air. Silence and sulfur. He sees the ghostly young woman and the schoolyard of dead children, but there's more. He senses IT and feels IT sense him. It's amused at the new toy.
<i>Curiosity killed the cat</i> floats to him through the ether a split second before the lancing pain hits his entire body. It's as if electricity and fire have combined together to burn him from the inside out.
The ghosts around him just shake their heads. <i>Your fault. All you ever do is get people killed. Now it's your turn</i>, they say, but without any eagerness. </blockquote>
A punch in the jaw from Dean is welcome relief to the excruciating agony from the demon. Constantine slams against the passenger side door while Sam falls back in his seat, gasping.
"What the hell? I'm trying to drive here, do you think you two could avoid demonic attacks until the car stops?" Dean yells.
"I saw it. It's not happening yet," Constantine says as he tries to collect himself. Recovering from the attack isn't aided by Dean's rapid sharp turn as he continues to follow Angela's van. "I know where."
"Then we'd better wrap up this chase," Dean says as he tries to pull closer to the SUV. The Impala doesn't have quite the horsepower and slips behind the longer they stay on the straight away. Which turns out to be a good thing when an old Ford truck slams into the front of Angela's SUV. Horrified, Constantine watches as the SUV and truck go airborne. Fortunately, traffic is light and neither vehicle hits any others. Angela's SUV lands on it's passenger side on the opposite sidewalk while the truck is nose first against it, pinning the SUV to the building that stopped it.
"Christ, Angela," Constantine says as he opens his car door even before Dean brings it to a complete stop.
He doesn't even notice the driver of the other car getting out of its car, uninjured, until he hears Sam's exclamation of "Wings? What the hell is going on?" and a gun cocking. Constantine's unsurprised to see that Dean's the one with the gun drawn even though he's looking at his little brother oddly.
"I don't see any wings, Sam. You're sure you didn't scramble your brains permanently yesterday?" Dean asks.
Constantine doesn't have the time to correct him. "Thanks," he tells the angel half-breed as he starts scaling the SUV to find the best way to extract Angela.
"It's visible a long way off. Didn't think you made it a habit of letting them upset the balance like this, Constantine," the truck driver says, his wings rustling in irritation and anger.
"Tell it to your boss," Constantine growls back. "I need a knife to cut her out."
Dean tosses one up to him. "Hurry up, sirens are on the way already," he says.
Great, there's always a good samaritan around to fuck up your day even more.
<hr>
Once they have Angela's body out of the car, Constantine's relieved to see that it doesn't appear to be too broken. He's well aware of what an exorcism will do to his friend if she's mortally wounded. She and the demon inside remain unconscious during the process, but they wake just as Constantine grabs the chains to bind her. "Connie, she always did figure you were into bondage," it says before flinging him through the air. The chains are thrown as well and knock Dean over. Thankfully, Sam was standing out of its line of sight at the time and is able to knock Angela's body unconscious once more with the butt of a pistol.
"These chains really going to slow her down much?" Sam asks as they tie her up.
Constantine nods. "Blessed iron chains from the inquisition."
Dean laughs at that as they wrestle Angela into the back seat of the Impala. "Funny how even the worst Church actions are still holy, isn't it? Back to your place for the exorcism?"
Constantine takes in the blood from Angela's head wounds and shakes his head. "I have a friend whose place is closer. Plus she's a doctor."
"That's always a bonus."
**okay, the next part should be Sam??**
---------------------------------------------------
Random scene: Sam's run off after jesse and dean/constantine were unable to stop them. They're at a bar or something
"I still think you're wrong. I mean, you see those things. Does Sam really look any different from me or anyone else?"
Constantine takes his time to answer. "You mean besides the fact he gets visions that are linked to a demon?" Dean scowls and takes another shot of whiskey. "No, he doesn't, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything. Besides, he'd be a new breed."
"And I'm just supposed to believe you? You've admitted you suggested Dad raise another demon to fight this thing. That's just stupid."
"This line of work isn't for anyone who has something to lose."
"And you don't?"
"Well, I didn't. I'm still adjusting to the new status quo."
"So why didn't you help him back then? The people that have died-"
Constantine cuts him off. "Truth is, I didn't believe him. The balance would prohibit a full fledged demon from possessing someone. I figured it better to scare him back into hunting the freaks and occassional ghost when he had two kids that could get hurt dealing with the demonic."
"Turns out you were wrong."
"Turns out your pops wasn't being totally honest with me."
"He's not a demon."
Constantine sighs. He feels guilty that Sam has run away based on that. On top of it, frustration roils at the black and white nature that Dean views the supernatural with. "Look, I don't know exactly what your brother is - like I said, he's a new breed. No, right now, he's not demonic, but he is linked to it, which suggests to me his parentage. But the fact is that even the demons are of God if you go back to the right battle. Which basically makes your brother, and those like him, something that hasn't existed before and has upset the balance."
"What does it make them, exactly?" Dean asks, needing the clarification. His eyes begging for a way out of what his definition of good and evil means for his brother.
"It makes him an angel with a soul. Which by the rules, doesn't, and shouldn't, exist." Dean's shoulder relax visibly. John almost regrets having to snatch the hope from him. "None of which protects him. Souls are turned all the time. Worse, more than one angel has fallen. And none of the books talks about what would happen if one like him does fall."
THAT'S ALL FOLKS...AT LEAST FOR NOW.</lj-cut>