5877/A Voice In the Darkness

A Voice In the Darkness
Date of Scene:	07 April 2021
Location:	Nico's Vintage Shop, Brooklyn
Synopsis:	John spoils a snake's day.
Cast of Characters:	Meggan Puceanu, John Constantine

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Meggan Puceanu has posed:
A note stabbed to a board in the Empire Club tells it all. Demons wearing skin suits means /something/ to someone, even if it's not entirely coherent to Meggan. The scribbled details that show up on the note give an idea of where a location might be: one that requires a lot of searching for someone who isn't a native of New York and doesn't know which street collides with which. It hasn't helped that the pet store in question is a shuttered entity no longer used, replaced by paper in the windows and a fresh sign on the door reading "Reinventing ourselves! Coming soon: Nico's Vintage Works!' The eerie announcement of a friendly new vintage and refinished furniture shop thriving this deep into town is another matter altogether, but a glimpse of a mint green armoire and a few stylish, overpriced mid-century pieces visible through the window erases all traces of kennels or Rover and his fine goods for sale.

The mystic mural aforementioned gives another radar point to search for, though it's vividly overshadowed by a fake palm tree and the patio furniture of the oyster bar next door. The livid colours of a woman's very Mesoamerican skirt mingle with plants, birds, an Aztec serpent in its glorious plumes and scales. Psychedelic colours clash: cyan, viridian green, astonishingly bright magenta and yellow superimposed on the bricks that become a remarkably confusing blend. The woman's hands reach out, warriors dancing all around her. It has a feel of the Bronx murals seen elsewhere, the art in the Ministry, but none of the icy edges. This runs darker, something more confounding. Flowers and death, the cycle of water and life and blood all bound up into something.

Unfortunately, it's also busy given the lunch rush on a gorgeous day. Diners eat on the patio and slink around the bars. Windows opened give the place a shine. Neighbouring businesses compete for attention from couriers, pedestrians, cyclists, and shoppers out and about midweek, because that's New York. It never slows down or sleeps. It defies 9-to-5 even though it's a commercial city-state built on it.

The middle of the night might have been nicer but beggars can't be choosers even if they're warlocks from the big city and... well. Fae. Fae don't attend to any given time, either.

John Constantine has posed:
"Bloody surrealists are everywhere," John mutter. He stares at the painting, absorbing it. Studying it. There's something off about the image in a way few people could readily state.

Notably, no one is looking at it. No one from the patio, the diner, the other windows. The way prey averts their gaze from a predator.

The magus takes a long drag from his cigarette and blasts smoke from his nose. A few nearby patrons of the diner shoot dirty looks at him, which are met with a complete lack of concern. Or awareness.

John looks at Meggan and tilts his head at the building. "Right then, c'mon luv. Now's as good a time as any." Across the street he goes, dodging cars, and ends up at the entrance to the shop. One hand shades his gaze to look inside for signs of life; seeing none, John gently tries the door. The lock rattles against the hasp. A rake and tension tool come out of his pocket like a key. Almost as quickly, he has the door open. He slips inside, looks around, then beckons for Meggan to follow once they're indoors.

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
A mural tall enough to cover the side of a building is hard to miss. Even with the heat lamps in case of cold nights, and the umbrellas in case of sun. Tables littered around where lucky patrons schlep oysters on the shell or breaded and fried should notice the colour, even if they don't. Hard to ignore fuchsia or a glorious black-and-white etched spill of a skirt with flowers and maize husks worked in.

People will ignore anything. That's the odd part of the psyche. Meggan watches them for a few moments, not at all pining after a green dresser or a raw oyster - ick, no. The margaritas, the breezy sunshine? That's all heaven to someone like her.

But Constantine calls, and she tilts her head, springtime thoughts dissipating by the time that trench coated form slides through the colourful array of locals about town. She hastens after, closing the difference by practically dancing on her toes. He has to work quick on opening the door to the papered-up vintage shop, someone being bound to notice. Even if the blonde leans in to peer into the window, incidentally blocking anyone from reaching his back. Between his lean form and her idealized one, it's bound to work out that people see what they want. Her ogling the goods, him probably tying his shoe or checking the hours. No need to loiter.

The door opens on a space recently cleaned, smelling of Pine-Sol and fresh paint. The floors gleam. The walls host different shelves with various vintage bric-a-brac, candleholders and fancy light fixtures. The place is clean, though wedged adjacent to the oyster bar and the mural, just as Julio said. A back door leads to the alley, a stock area in a small backroom clearly a source of artistry and storage for different pieces not out on the floor. It's not occupied; Nico probably isn't here to move goods out yet. The place feels bright, any traces of cats or dogs or hamsters or hay long gone.

Different from the wild promise of the mural, the buzz of the oyster bar. No signs of bodies, but then, it's a staging point.

John Constantine has posed:
John puts his hands in his pockets and starts wandering his way through the antique store. A vintage ash tray is used for the purpose, the cigarette crushed to death between rolling fingers and left smouldering in its own ash.

"Right. If I were a hidden room, where would I be?" John remarks. The comment's perhaps ten percent aimed at Meggan, the rest speculation for the small business. He goes to the back room and checks it, then emerges shaking his head. "Nothing but storage and old signs," he informs Meggan. The magus looks up at the ceiling, frowns thoughtfully.

"Right then, up or down d'you think?" he inquires of the blonde. A thumb waggles at a door painted to blend with the wall, marked simply 'Stairs'.

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
Smoke among the bright, clean space eradicates any remaining traces of animal smells that used to linger. The transformation to a new spot is just about complete. Noise simmers through the shared wall with the restaurant, percolating up as a jazzy tune more suited for New Orleans than New York. Clinks and murmurs get through the soundproofing, the tinkling laughter of a woman spiking up and down.

The blonde looks around, her silhouette thrown as a long shadow on the floor. "Out of sight," she quips, probably joking. There is such a thing as taking things too literally, at times. Her lips lift, quirked at the corners. "Dingy old attic, except place like this hasn't one, looks like people live up there." As Brooklyn is, nothing is a single story. Most everything is two, true of the Bronx and Queens in the dense neighbourhoods. "You reckon they've a basement roundabout? I don't see a trapdoor, but then..." Elf, natural secret doors check? Go! Except she nudges at the vinyl flooring with her toe, tracing it along to the wall. "All this is solid piece, looks like. We could peel it back if need be? I don't know we'd find anything down there." Her fingers curl, miming peeling an orange. "Stairs 'tis, then." Ah, the Cumbrian accent is lilting heavy, bouncing with Gaelic and Welsh undertones.

John Constantine has posed:
"I'm not in the mood for a remodel," John says, and cracks a grin. "But I'll remember that enthusiasm if I ever feel a need to tear up the vinyl in some drab apartment."

The door to the stairs is unlocked and hauled open. Indeed, the sounds and smells of life from upstairs suggest that the occupants above the abode are not harboring bodies. A pencil's taken from the desk and he breaks off a piece of wood to jam in the hasp. It'll prevent anyone from completely locking the door on them.

Down they go, into the murky coolness of the basement. Fingers curl and summon a light caged in his palm and projected forward like a lantern. John looks at the floor, then stops and sweeps his fingers over the dust. "Footprints," he tells Meggan, and points the light in the path they take.

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
"Sometimes we need to tear things down, love, for them to grow or improve." Meggan threads her fingers through her hair and follows after John, still mindful of where she goes. The absence of footfalls at all betrays her habit of floating, giving only a single set of prints to go by if anyone happens to aim for the Great Detective archetype. When he breaks a pencil, she peers at John's work. "Oh, that /is/ clever. Saves me from having to do anything funny as my mist self."

As though such things are everyday affairs, but she follows behind him as a wise precaution against blocking the light. Not too far. Those stairs are old, and rats dwelling in almost all subterranean spaces have left their mark here. The oysters next door are probably a fecund spot for snatching a bite, and the sounds of little feet scampering match the scratching here and there in dark corners. Have no fear of cobwebs, for they exist. The open beams of the floor above are strung with wires, bulb hanging naked. Several boxes marked by everyone's favourite LexCorp distributors are stacked up on a rack, along with paints, brushes, and cleaning supplies. All very orderly, quite dull.

Light gleams off a rigid arm stuffed behind the rack, posed upright given the shadows eclipsed by the bulk in front of it. Otherwise the concrete floor and bare boards don't give up much but for that fishy, salty stink percolating through the wall shared with the restaurant. To the other side? Vague murmurs of the shoe repair shop, the harmonic drone of the sewing machine matched with someone puttering about. Not very exciting. A drain in the floor isn't much to speak of.

"I'd rather not go down there," Meg comments. "Like to be awful smelling, but if needs must?" The pipe isn't big.

John Constantine has posed:
"No..." The response is vague, lacking focus; John finds the light and turns on the bulbs overhead, dismissing the elemental light in his hands. Motes of fairy dust are brushed from his palm and vanish back into the aether.

"No, it'd have to be something they could get to. Hard to magic oneself around, let alone a bleedin' corpse."

He turns a circle, thinking. A finger points at the wall. "Okay, there's the bar... that wall's the cobbler... street's through that one, so..." He turns to the rear wall, following a pointing finger. "Process of elimination, aye? Give us a hand, let's see what's behind these shelves." He starts pulling down boxes to get a better view of the back wall, searching for a hidden lever or concealed door.

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
"What says they aren't rotted out by now? How are they being sustained?" Meggan's eyes have a jade tinge in the low light of the basement. When the electricity zips through the wires, it takes a second for the bulb to flash on, weakly disrupted and then growing stronger. It smells down there of cleaning supplies and the sea, a weird confluence. One that tickles the nose enough she has to sneeze.

Behind the shelves proves an easy instruction; peeling boxes and buckets away from the freestanding rack exposes the wall behind, just another row of drywall mounted to studs cheaply. No effort here to decorate. The staring eyes watching John pull boxes away might be a bit disconcerting considering it's a head focused on him, the frozen smile alarmingly stepfordian in a way. The body has a feminine shape, pinned by hard metal somewhere, unable to topple or slouch. Pale skin under a white t-shirt has an eerie shape, as it grins, grins, grins as it will til kingdom come.

The smell through the wall is wet sand, mustiness, and shellfish. Briny, thick. Meggan doesn't take long to pull down boxes, though she startles at the mannequin and practically slaps a brush right into its face. The grin doesn't shift. "Bloody hell, I'm fully prepared to punch a hole through that if you think it would help." The direct path so often works.

John Constantine has posed:
John looks over his shoulder at Meggan's yelp and cracks a grin. "Feeling a bit on edge, eh?" he teases. "Give it a mo', I'm sure something scaly and ugly will try to take a bite out of me. Might need a proper right cross at that point."

He starts running his fingers over the drywall and pauses when he finds a seam. There's a little notch in the thing, just big enough for a finger, and he hooks it into the hole. The drywall shudders loose from the frame, held in place only by a little lazy tension. "Knew it," he says, with a satisfied tone. The drywall's pulled back to reveal the passage behind.

John palms a ruby stone in his hand, flickering with lambent red light. He looks at Meggan, then gestures at her. "Ladies first. Don't worry, I've got your back," he promises, and rolls the gemstone across the back of his fingers.

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
With a swift shake of her head, the changeling girl clenches her fist. "Never mind the light happens to be on. Things jump out all the same." The incandescent smirk bundles anxiety and bravery into a phosphorescent glow, underscored by a sparkling grapefruit punch to the palate when coupled with a little tilt of her head. "So happens that before its teeth might sink into you, we'll have words, it and me."

Her hesitation vanishes with the moment as John sinks his fingers and yanks, a subtle realignment of her spine and shoulders to alertness like a hound on point. The gradual narrow gap rips open, though the torn suggestions of plaster and insulation poking out through the holes. The smell of rotting fish grows the stronger, no doubt thanks to breaking a seal on oceanic evil. Or simply because the kitchen and dumpsters are in close proximity, even if the oyster bar is partly the other way. Still, it smells, a moldering overtone resting on the dark concrete stained by time. Strobing scarlet rolls over a short procession of studded walls, their horsehair stuffing suggesting how old New York really is. How old the building is, too. Sliding past him, she idly runs her hand over his back and shoulder. A thrilling tension plucked and no more as she steps inside the narrow space, somehow dwarfing it, despite it being a perfectly standard six and some feet inches tall. Those some mean ducking for most people. "I don't feel anything distinct from anyone else around there," she murmurs, still looking around. "Regrettably no obvious signatures behind the wall or the floor. Not to say they aren't there, but I'm getting nest of ...maybe rats?" A twist of her mouth echoes the sentiment as she points vaguely up and to the left, corresponding to closer to ground level by the back entrance. Nothing reaches out for her, but the sense of diminishing keeps on moving as she flits deeper into the scarlet-tinged space.

John Constantine has posed:
"Just because you can't see them, doesn't mean invisible demons aren't about to jump out and rip off yer face," John mumbles near Meggan's ear. He dutifully steps back a pace or two so she can take point unhindered. Meggan's not exactly invulnerable in the traditional sense, but having seen her in action before John has no qualms about setting his survival ahead of his sense of ego (or chivalry).

Down the hall they go. Old sewer access ladders covered in years of rust and slow buildup lead up to covers that look welded shut. Someone's basement-access elevator, a common sight in New York sidewalks, has been permanently disabled as well. The sabotage looks more recent, and John points at subtle runes that discourage people from going near the portals. "Nice touch that," he admires.

At the end of the hall John pauses Meggan and examines the door. A whisper of magic from his lips brushes against the door and frame. He frowns, then digs in his limitless pockets for a tiny phial of gold powder. A pinch is flung at the door front and a rune of angry, violent red flashes into visibility. The gold dust seems to absorb it, make it fade out.

Booby trap disarmed, John steps back and looks at Meggan. Then gestures again. "Right behind you," he promises with his most guileless expression.

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
Takes one to know one, but not worth telling the Laughing Magician hear that. Besides, an actual demon trying to grab a metamorphic empath might soon discover the absolute folly of their actions, if they survived the encounter. Point is relative where she is involved, slipping onward on a trail of gold in her wake. Bloody gold thanks to that gemstone in John's hand, but her strange nature responds to the peculiar oddities of a place where the veil falls thinner over the world than it should.

The gold dust leaves afterimages flickering there: arrows suspended in midair, ghostly shapes hurtling over the fae's slender shoulder to smash into the door. Feathers hang in midair, still aflame, smoke twisting in elevation that will never quite end. All of it is terribly peculiar, even with the smell of corn and heavy tropical flowers rising in sparks.

At least the ground isn't sprouting with wildflowers in her wake, but Meggan freezes among the surreal display. It's not about to strike her, not totally, but becoming a pincushion isn't bound to be very pleasant. "Lovely. Life with you is never going to be dull, is it?"

The door really isn't that impressive, for all that rust and a few layers of paint applied to make it extra sticky would hold back. She sizes it up, looking for the side opposite any obvious handle, and when no seam presents itself, she hardly stops. One solid, stiff-fingered strike buries her fingers up to the knuckles in the dented metal, and the digits curl to crush the outer layer into a handhold. Shoulders flex; as her feet leave the ground, she grabs the torn core and wrenches the frame out of its socket with a protesting wail of brass fixtures and steel bolts.

Putting it down gently is almost beyond the point since the other side contains at least ten humanoid shapes kept under dustcloths, like some kind of illicit dumping ground for stolen art.

John Constantine has posed:
"Hasn't been much so far. Mostly just peril and death threats," John mutters.

He waits patiently for her to finish her demolition and gives Meggan an almost prim look. "You were really hoping to find something here to break, weren't you," he says, making it more accusation than inquiry. Eyes dance with mirth and he slips past her into the improvised mortuary.

"Right then," John says, once they're shoulder-to-shoulder again. "This is the part of the film where the two protagonists decide to have a quick shag and the zombies rise up."

He sniffs the air, then realizes he doesn't have cigarette and lights one up with a practiced motion. "I think if more filmmakers had visited a mortuary, we'd see less of that sort of idiocy."

John looks at Meg, then tilts his head. "Right, c'mon, let's check them out. I didn't bring any silver stakes with me, so if they start moaning and coming to life I'll need a hot minute to improvise something."

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
"Such a low bar." Meggan extracts her hands, the etchings of scratches and blood practically sealed up while he watches. She can brush the latter off on her jeans, since leaving blood behind where mages leave marks is a foolish venture. "What did I say about creation and destruction being part of the same cycle? It's spring, love. We can work on the creation part later."

Promises, promises. All the promises she made. First comes survival, which earns him a stifled smile. John might have to worry about the cigarette; the butt burns a weird green hue. Something not quite intense enough to be St. Elmo's fire, but distinguishably outside the norm. The smoke filters through the air. A hanging arrow in the gossamer ephemera suddenly jerks forward two feet and slams into a supporting pillar that holds up the ceiling. Where it collides, the obsidian tip shatters in a tinkling crackle. Shards bounce off the ground, and something in the darkness shifts, altered to the slithering weight of mist coalescing into something heavy, scaled, undoubtedly serpentine. At least in part.

John Constantine has posed:
John staggers back, uplifting an arm to interpose it between the explosion and his face. The jacket's sturdy stuff, enchanted for that very purpose. Still, a little shrapnel leaves red welts on his face.

Hands move fast and pull a tiny crystal from his pocket. It catches and reflects the light like a diamond with a tiny heart of light in it. "Lumos!" John barks, and flings the crystal towards the slithering noise. It must be made of eggshell glass; it shatters, and the room lights up like mid-day sun from no particular source. Constantine grips the ruby in his hand and snarls a word of power that charges his fist with a sanguine aura that drips red flame.

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
Light splinters and sparkles, revealing something equally as brilliant. There: turquoise scales patterned in an interlocking diagram more like diamonds mortared together than something natural. Fringed gold feathers, fuchsia turning to scarlet lines raced along the Aztec serpent. Yellow and blue gems gleam on the horrifically large creature, something bound to put an anaconda to blushing shame. A curious bird-like crest descends over its face, snout full of sharp teeth and a fiery, flickering tongue that tastes the air with a certain guidance. Glistening, dark liquid dance over its fangs, certainly a venom of some kind.

Exquisite as the thing is absolutely horrible, it slides through the wall with a careless ease, never so much as leaving a hole in its wake. Clearly it has no problem with such concerns, petty as they are, though the weight sends ripples through the thin sheet of water in a spot on the concrete floor. At once tangible and not, or else a damn cheat as spiritual horrors tend to be. It doesn't speak, for it doesn't have to. A very embodiment of the Mesoamerican weapon of the sun, it whips its tail through one of the walls with a contemptuous ease to fling either of them off their feet.

Seeing that Meggan stands the closer to Xiuhcoatl than Constantine himself, she has the least space to move away from the serpent. Hitting the wall with her shoulder proves she is every bit as physical as the broken arrow, but its coils harmlessly pass through and re-emerge with clear intent to strike. Her rebound off the ceiling is acrobatic as it is peculiar, almost awkward with the snake filling the space, but she plows down onto its back in a death grip of sorts. "Bloody hell, you're nothing but a tail with a face! Stay /put/!"

John Constantine has posed:
John is neither as dextrous or durable, and there's a crack deep inside his chest at that impact. At least he doesn't smack his head against the stone wall as he tumbles backwards, but he fetches up against it hard all the same.

"Fucking jammy bastard serpents," he grates. "Stay down in Mexico," he adds, and wheezes those words out.

"Don't let it bite you!" John croaks. It's probably pretty obvious, but the tail is less a threat than the venom dripping from the fangs.

An iron rod is pulled out from an inner pocket, where John keeps his most dangerous tools. He drives one end into the ground and a blue nimbus of light leaps around him. The next time that whipping tail comes his way, it bounces off the light as if it's a solid construct.

"The bint's phased in the Aether!" John shouts after Meggan. He winces away as another violent blow impacts the shield, making the rod quaver. "And it's CHEATING!" he adds, and ducks another blow that visibly bends the light field and dents the rod.

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
Durability is Meggan's forte; a scion of the Otherworld needs that much to endure the wild fluctuations in her native environment, even if places like the Starlight Citadel or Avalon boast considerable stability in the endless shifting vagaries to meet the needs of the mercurial or outright potentates dwelling within.

On the other hand, she is trying to entangle a serpent summoned by some purpose, one which apparently treats linear planes as optional. Her arms tighten around the scaly body, grinding powder between the turquoise and azurine scales, and pulls right back when John goes tumbling. Anger flares in her eyes, an inhuman flame coalescing out of the formerly mundane hue. Pointed ears? Right there. Inner pockets of the Coat of Many Things may hold their mysteries, but she skids across the concrete floor before managing to jam her heel into the ground and yank back. Fighting with something that chooses to plunge ethereal and mundane again isn't exactly fair, but at least he has a shield.

/She/ has fangs to worry about, and the thing about ethereal fangs is that they go right through jeans and mundane clothes like nothing. Jam a five inch blade through her flesh, she feels it. The snapping bite of those envenomed fangs bloody well hurts, sizzling and leaving her flesh bubbling in the process. Naturally, she shrieks, though the sound is a great deal more impressive when the serpent aims to shake her and she does what any sane Tuathan would do. Wrestle it? Hardly, how dull. She rides the damn thing as it wraps around to pull her to the ceiling, and those burning flames that ignite her clothes go ignored as her hands rime with lightning sparks and dancing sylphs. Ozone reeks through the air. The explosive discharge is nothing if not damnably bright. But electricity is akin to light, the very thing he fights with, the very thing she is. Earth and sky and water and flame: one of them will balance out.

John Constantine has posed:
John grits his teeth and forcibly shoves the pain in the back of his mind. It hurts; he'll deal with the hurt later. Right now the priority is the snake. It thrashes and bites, and Meggan's counter attack does harm with that raw elemental fury.

John looks down at the shielding rod, up at Meggan, then rips the rod from the Earth. "Meg!" he shouts, and throws it at her head. "Stab the blighter!"

It's not *precisely* intended for that purpose, but the principle is sound enough. He'll have to apologize for handing her a piece of cold iron later, most likely.

John draws a penknife and slashes it against the back of his hand. Blood dribbles on the ground and he paints a hasty sigil. It's fast and dirty, leaking wild, raw magic from the ragged edges. But it will do the trick, and John's muttered arcane words start charging the air with the scent of ozone. An electrical charge is building, quickly.

A very *big* charge.

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
Stab is easier than done, since trying to chip through the stony scales has the effect of battering down the art decorating Aztec temples to sun and moon. Smashing through tremendously elaborate courtyards and walls normally might horrify the activist. Bit different when struck through by the deadly venoms, casually threading through her bloodstream, and the patent risk to someone so much mortal than she is. Even if he is Mr. Perfectly Fine and the wracking pain convulsing up her spine leaving her rigid, clawing at the peculiarly smooth surface.

Thanks to Mr. Insincere Relationship With Death Thanks to Nergal, casual cruelty becomes an artform. Her skin blisters with reddish embers landing on it, the serpent's tongue leaving forked weals. Taking lightning point blank sends forking white lines through the powdered scales, feathers rising in a sharp crest. Its body lashes and rolls with her, smothering the chamber until it might seem to be full of gigantic azure rolls that vanish in and out of the walls. Somewhere in the scattered vastness of its serpentine body, the shielding rod clanks off the wall. Hits a curve. Crunched bones shouldn't be able to reach for it, but they do as the constriction destroys the elemental and she just keeps reshaping herself at a horrific speed. Slender fingers reach, denied when the thing breaks through her skin again, another nasty bite breaking straight through her arm and coming out the other side. Blood falls, splattered, thick.

Hard to know when the little device is caught, but the moment blood turns to fire might match the point when the ashes of her hoodie escapes Xiuhcoatl. It marks a smear of ash, and then ravaged scales as she uses the butt end to slam in repeatedly against the compressing helix trying to smother her. Probably not what Welsh miners had in mind when they thought of brownies, klokers, or the bucca -- the famed Tommyknockers by another name. But the weird, eldritch slam of metal into fired stone has the same cadence of chipping out ores, in some way. Halls of the Mountain King it isn't as they tumble, twisting and weaving, slammed within a living hell of a serpent washing machine.

John Constantine has posed:
John waits.

Timing is everything. Too soon is too soon. It takes wisdom and skill to wait. To be patient. The right moment will arrive when it does. Excruciating as those ticking seconds are, there is a moment between the ticks when the counterstroke can become a coup de grace.

The iron chips and shatters scales and then there is blood, brackish and green, spattering Meggan.

"FULMINOS!" The work is barked with all the Will John can throw behind it and the hasty sigil explodes with crackling electricity. No mere lightning, no static charge; it lives, aware, striking like...

Well, a serpent. It hits the tip of that iron rod, ignoring Meggan entirely, and crawls into the gap of the scales. The lightning elemental makes a detailed, sprawling map of the serpent's anatomy as it courses through that form and explodes out of the tip of it's tail, job done and slipping away into the world via a little pool of water in the corner.

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
Everything. Knowing when to hold still and give the monstrous serpent a target or slip away and leave it confounded for a new target. Lightning erupts across flame-baked sides, painting the darkest grey streaks where it travels through the convulsing turquoise snake. Agony lashes out in a dire effort to make the pain stop: it may be partly spiritual but it feels. The fletched obsidian tip of its tail slams into the floor to leave cracks radiating through the foundation, hitting whatever lies beneath. Peak flows leave surging sparkles in the air among the dust and a clattering rainfall of missiles falling out of motion capture: arrows rain all over, deflected and clacking as the serpent ignites and falls apart spontaneously.

Slag hits the ground in puddles, bleaching the scales white where they aren't turned into hazardous, stinking puddles. Meggan drops to her hands and knees, ash and blue powder streaking her skin in a weirdly tigrine way. One of the walls gives way where she was battered against it, and the lightning's concussive force did the rest. Through cracked holes, scaly dismembered effigies cast in stone have the concerning shape of eggs at a distance, or disembodied skulls. More than that, perhaps, but sealed within, who knows what?

John Constantine has posed:
John exhales a sigh of relief and falls forward on his hands and knees. It's a breathing respite, ragged and pained, and it lasts just a few moments.

"C'mon luv, up and at 'em," John says near her ear. He offers ginger assistance, uncertain of how injured she is. "I've some tincture that'll ease the venom if you need it," he adds, and moves a hand halfway to his coat.

He straightens as much as his ribs allow and surveys the damage. "Well, here's hoping Julio's corpse didn't get too battered," he mutters. It's a bit of a wreck down there; hopefully the shops above just percieve it as the background noises common in big cities. "Might need to tend those eggs though. I've seen too many films where leaving those sort of nests alone turns out badly."

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
The wound in the shoulder doesn't bleed; the one doing interesting things to her thigh, short of actually splitting the artery, currently shows a combination of peacock-fanned dust, bruises, and a shine of light. Meggan doesn't scar, if one disregards the seal upon her heel. Never mind she has the equivalent of a stab wound left by the wicked fang-bite; her body already rebels against this intrusion, reacting by spontaneously filling in bits and pieces.

Pointed ears give that subtle bonus to catching John's laboured breathing and the ravages of discomfort. She goes back onto her heels, wobbling slightly. Her bloodstained arm doesn't show bone, but she grimaces bluntly. "S'all there happening, love," she murmurs, slurring the words and more distinctly trapped in the lilting highlands and valleys of her Lake District accent. "Rwy'n gweld y goleuadau disglair, rhithwelediad?" The tangled, verboten clash of elegant syllables teases its way out as she forces herself to rise, standing, floating really. "S'nae there. Hallucinations. May be real?" Her eyes blink, pupils widening. "Eggs?" But she follows, at least, carelessly flitting afterward, golden hair tangled around her in waves. "Too early for brekkie. Crack a few anyway, would you?"

John Constantine has posed:
Well, the sylph is a bit high from the venom. Such a dose would have easily killed most humans. It seems to be just a mild inconvenience for her and John relaxes with a relieved expression. His coat's slid off and offered to Meggan. "Mind the pockets," he reminds her.

John reaches into one such pocket for a flask. "In that case, I'll have some of Doctor John's personal remedy." He takes a few healthy swigs of bourbon. He coughs, and the pain makes him choke and almost double over.

"Fucker broke a rib," he grimaces. John makes himself straighten and offers the flask to Meggan before it's to be replaced.

He kicks the cracked masonry into the antechamber to make passage. His hand curls around a mote of light, holding it out like a lantern. "Mm. Snakes," he mutters. "Aztec snakes," he clarifies, holding the light up to examine the murals.

"Wasn't a demon," he says, thinking aloud. "Would have smoked out of here if it was just a conjuration. And I wouldn't think a spectre could lay eggs." The light shines at the asymmetrical shapes. "It's a ... trying to remember. A something-coatl. No. Motecuilahuiani," he says, snapping his fingers. "The gods gave them to priests to guard sacred sites."

He looks up at Meggan, lifts a chin at her. "Want a pet?"

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
A bit is underselling it. For someone already stymied by highs from most drugs, toxins and venoms present another compound to break down, twist around, and exploit loopholes in. Unfortunately biology can be a bitch, especially when it comes to quasi-ethereal serpents trying to plunge their victims mostly into that projected space. She makes a terrible ghost.

Her fingertips flutter along the injury piercing muscle and flesh, feeling where it lies before she travels down and finds the broken bone with a hiss. "Don't hurt yourself." An admonishment lands gently in John's direction. She accepts the flask, barely bothering to sniff it. The twinkly effects of the lights, however, cause her stare for long, long moments.

"Unfair that you're all so beautiful. Compelling? That's the word. Maybe." Sighing, she tries to look away and can't, sipping the flask's contents on pretext rather than any realized need. The thrill of the liquid proves a near torment, in a sense, though she rebounds lightly off a wall after sinking into its surface a few critical millimeters. Not /entirely/ embodied, then, though being subjected to something's meal in another dimension is a nasty hunting technique. "Mm'not able to deny you offering a present. Where are we going to put it?"

John Constantine has posed:
John casts around, then reaches for his overcoat again. This time a rather prosaic grocery bag is dug out and he starts piling the eggs in it.

"You're high as a bloody kite, aren't you?" he inquires, with a bemused expression. John looks at the cache of eggs, frowns. "We might need to keep these at your place. I've a few too many dangerous mystical items at the motel at the mo'. If we keep them cool it should prevent them from hatching."

John steps over the rubble and surveys the corpses. "Right. First things, let's get you somewhere safe. Maybe a shower and some clothes," he adds, with a wry grin. "And I've a mate who knows some people, I'll make sure these bodies get to where they need to go without getting dissected."