Suffer The Children

by Rossi

Epilogue: Exeunt The Bastard.

This is how it ends.

Broken glass crunched under his feet once more, and beneath the ever-present tang of tobacco he could smell dampness and decay. Dim late afternoon light drifted in through the broken windows, the holed roof. Not much of a place to call home.

The investigation had been quietly wound up; faced with the conundrum of a demonic child carrying out the Lord's work, it was easier for the Met's top brass to shove it all under the carpet and pretend it hadn't happened. Phil Kingston was encouraged to take 'stress leave' - in other words, he'd jumped before he was pushed - and he and his wife were visiting family in Bronte country. Odds on he'd take early retirement, settle down in some small Yorkshire village. There was only so much a man like Phil could take.

The Crusaders had faded into the background again, consolidating their losses, biding their time. Once he might have weeded them out, driven them out from under their rocks and into the sun, but Phil wasn't the only one who'd had enough. Once it had been a laugh, dancing the line between heaven and hell, thumbing his nose at both, but in the end it had gotten him nowhere. What had he to show for it but a cemetery full of friends and lovers and a head full of ghosts?

Something stirred in the rafters, and a feather drifted down, spiralling in the darkening twilight.

John Constantine glanced once upwards, to the platforms, and then shrugged his shoulders deeper into the ever-present trenchcoat and left the cold, echoing warehouse to the darkness.

Sod this for a lark.

***

The End.

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