Suffer The Children

by Rossi

Chapter Six: Sins Of The Fathers.

Constantine skidded around the corner, shoes sliding on the tiles. He tried to ignore the hammering of his heart in his chest and the nasty feeling in his gut that maybe his detective work wasn't as good as he hoped. Blank-eyed commuters stared at him incuriously as he shouldered his way past, trying to avoid him without being seen to acknowledge that a wild-eyed man in a stained trench coat was battering his way through the rush-hour crowds on a Tube station platform. It would have been terribly un-English to make a fuss. Then, as he was starting to think his luck had left him again, he was hit simultaneously by the incomprehensible Swahili mumble of the platform announcement, and the metallic taste of strong magic. His guess about the PA system he'd heard on Kingston's phone had been accurate after all - he was in at least the right place.

Now if only he was there at the right time.

With a glance behind him to make sure he hadn't attracted any unwelcome notice of the official kind, he stepped off the end of the platform and vanished into the smoky darkness of the train tunnel. The magic trace got stronger as he moved along the tracks, cursing softly under his breath at every misstep and stumble. A blast of fetid air from a side tunnel momentarily drowned out the smells of coal-smoke and ozone and fast food, and he took that turn; the tang of magic was stronger, and mixed with something else, something darker, something that put the primitive parts of his brain on alert and stirred the hair on the back of his neck. The small tunnel seemed to be some sort of maintenance conduit, as rough stone and metal rails gave way to concrete and dim lighting; at the end was a door, locked of course. Simple enough to pick. The dull grey metal was warm under his fingers, almost crackling with the level of ambient magic in the air. The air was fair electrical with it, like the atmosphere before a thunderstorm of Biblical proportions. Even young Tim Hunter hadn't sparked like this, and he had the potential to be the most powerful magician since Merlin, if he ever got his act together.

'Christ, Phil, you'd better buy me a beer after this,' Constantine thought, and then pushed open the door.

The room behind was some kind of storage room, no doubt replicated a thousand times throughout the Tube's network of underground railway stations and train lines. Oubliettes of equipment and cleaning products, misplaced or forgotten or just plain unwanted. Be that as it may, Constantine was willing to bet that there was no storeroom quite as gruesomely decorated as this one.

He was too late.

Blood oozed down the walls, dripped from the ceiling. Gobbets of flesh squelched unpleasantly beneath his feet as he took several faltering steps forward. In the centre, unmarred by the carnage, was the tell-tale circle, and the footprints.

"Those bastards. Those fuckin' bloody bastards." Constantine looked helplessly around, seeking someone or something on which to focus his rage, but finding nothing. Blood rained down on him, streaking his hair and face with sticky crimson - it ran down his face like thick tears. "It's too fucking much."

"I'd say it is," rasped a familiar voice from the doorway. Constantine whipped around to find Phil Kingston - unshaven, dishevelled, but most certainly alive - slumped against the door frame.

"Phil? Then who…?" It wasn't often Constantine was lost for words, but there's always a first time for everything.

"A nasty little zealot by the name of Elder Martin," Phil replied, enjoying Constantine's surprise. "You might remember him from the 'Donkey' last night. Put the wind right up him, you did."

"But that message on your phone… Christ, Phil, I heard the kid talkin' to you."

"'Are you a bad man?'" Kingston tried to chuckle, but it caught in his throat. "Scared the life outta me, that did. Turns out I wasn't a bad man, but your friend Martin was. The kid brought me down here - he took a liking to me, I s'pose - and then Martin showed up, raising all kinds of merry hell. He tried to get the kid to do me, but the kid did him instead." Kingston's grin slipped, revealing a man grown too old for this kind of crap. "He had a bit to say, 'though, before that happened. Seems you have some history with the Resurrection Crusade you weren't tellin' me about. I think it's time you told me what the fuck's going on, don't you, 'mate'?"

***

"They caught me on the hop." Constantine passed the lit cigarette over the Kingston after a deep drag. "The Damnation Army and the Resurrection Crusade. Mirror images, completely opposite in their allegiances, but not adverse t' using the same methods. I was in the States when things started - by the time I got back, they'd gotten such a head start I was practically out of the race. Only I had a bit of luck."

"Don't you always?" Kingston leaned back against the cool tiles of the maintenance tunnel, savouring the smoke. They'd left the unfortunate Elder Martin to the scavengers, Constantine tracking Raguel's magical signature through the maze of tunnels beneath London. And as they walked, they talked.

"Don't knock it - if it wasn't for my luck, you'd have been blood brothers with the Elder, there." Constantine cocked his head at a slight rustle from the tunnel.

"Is he coming back?"

"Nah, just a rat. I'll let you know." By silent agreement they began walking again, the way lit only erratically, the sound of their footsteps echoing off the slightly curved walls.

"So what happened? This lucky streak of yours?"

"A street-girl calling herself Zed. She was a graffiti artist…" Here Constantine paused, as another piece of the puzzle slotted into place. That otherworldly landscape on the warehouse wall had been one of Zed's. "She helped me out with some family business, and we got… close."

"'Close'?"

"There ain't much closer." Constantine allowed himself a brief leer before continuing. "Only she wasn't what she said she was. She was the chosen one of the Crusaders, destined to be the vessel bringing the next Son of God onto the scene."

"You've got to be jokin'. Another Messiah? Virgin birth, choirs of angels, frankincense and myrrh, all that rot?"

"Well, I took care of the virgin part, but otherwise you're right. She'd taken some kind o' sabbatical, wanting to experience life, only she didn't want to go back. The Crusaders ended up takin' her back by force. Killed a mate of mine, Ray Monde, to do it."

"That old queen with the antique shop in Camden? We had that tagged as a routine gay bashing."

"No reason to think otherwise. Any way, the Damnation Army can't let the Crusaders get the upper hand, so the demon in charge called Nergal visits me in the hospital with a once-in-a-lifetime offer. Stop the Crusaders, stuff up the prophecy, and he won't go through the maternity ward like Forrest Gump through a box of chocolates."

"'Hospital'?" To Kingston's amusement, Constantine actually looked sheepish.

"I talk a long walk off a short train. Broke quite a few bits of meself. Nergal fixed me up with a demon-blood transfusion."

"Somehow I doubt he did it out of the kindness of his heart." Constantine nodded.

"Damn right. The bastard knew I couldn't kill the Mary - Zed - so he rigged it so I'd betray her anyway." Again, Constantine paused. Here in the dark, in the quiet, his story had taken on the feeling of a confession. He felt - relieved? - to be speaking of these things, thought dead but as all undead things rising again at the worst possible moment. He doubted Kingston could grant him absolution, but it felt liberating all the same. "The blood was an infection. And I passed it on. She thought I was loving her, but in the end, I destroyed her."

"And this kid? Where does he fit in all this?" Always the copper, Kingston dragged them back to the original issue. His companion breathed out a long sigh of smoke.

"Well that's the thing, isn't it? I figured no angel would go where I'd spilt poisoned seed, and I know I was right about that. But this kid, he's Zed's all right; he looks just like her. The Crusaders have their Messiah. So where did he come from?" Taking another deep drag on his cigarette, Constantine stared off down the tunnel; there was light down there, and fresh air. They were almost out. It was several heartbeats before he spoke again:

"I think he's mine."

[next part]

back to Rossi's stories | Miscellaneous archive | comicfic.net