7857/Birthright: Incidental magic and dogfighting

Birthright: Incidental magic and dogfighting
Date of Scene:	16 September 2021
Location:	Old Gotham - Founders Island
Synopsis:	A feel-good megical tear in reality becomes one of the strangest things in Gotham, and feelings of electrical excitement are cause for alarm when Harper Row is sent out to investigate and a fight as an Outsider. Fellow Outsider Phoebe Beacon and Blue Collar Warlock John Constantine are on-scene when necromantic dogs attack! Zatanna plays the part of Calvary, and while Bluebird wisely exits with the admission that it's over her head, Phoebe... not so much.
Cast of Characters:	Phoebe Beacon, John Constantine, Harper Row, Zatanna Zatara

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Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Old Gotham was a twisting, turning place between old buildings, new buildings, one-way streets that dump out into more one-way streets and never the one-way you want to go. Rich patrons and wanna-be-rich-people who rent the cramped apartments in the old buildings play at making complaints regarding the smells of the zoo on a hot day.

    It was near the zoo that some people might start reporting a prickling, electric feeling. Like static right before a shock. Tingling unpleasantly, and then passing as they draw further away from a little thin place, just the tiniest tear in reality, where someone is watching.

    One of Gotham's near-native children was nearby, having climbed a tree to get a better look at the way people are reacting. She's got a crystal suspended from a bit of thin copper wire.

    "... is it supposed to be clockwise is closer?" she questions out loud from the boughs.

John Constantine has posed:
    When weirdness pings a map in the backroom of John's bar, he gets the message in the for of a phone call that started with the theme song to Taxi Driver. Look, this one's not even that far from home.

    John was though. He was in Whitechapel, to be exact, up until about two minutes ago. It may be a Wretched Pile of sticks, but the House of Mystery sure does save on airfare and time. It was just a matter of in through a portal in England and then back out one here in Gotham, right at the coordinates Chas gave him over the phone. Here's to hoping they're correct and he doesn't wind up int he alligator pit or something.

    He steps out, Silk Cut dangling from his lips, all arrogance and attitude, ready to slay your demons.

... or something like that. Truth be told, he really just looks *annoyed*.

Harper Row has posed:
When the call came into the office about the feeling of electrical tingles at the zoo Harper's ears proverbally perked up. Naturally she volunteered to go and do the investigation. Just as naturally the rest of the office let her, none of them having the same drive as she does it was easier for them to let the young woman look into it.

After the bus ride to Old Gotham with her kit in her lap the whole way, the blue haired young woman has to walk a block to the zoo. Her hair is down, she's in jeans and a t-shirt so doesn't look like a professional; but there's her badge and it gets her into places most can't. EMF meter in her hand she's scanning the area with hopes of finding what ever exposed wireing is causing the problem... it's got to be exposed wiring, right?

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Something is definitely exposed.

    The EMF reader is going a bit crazy, it's bouncing as if someone's tap-dancing on a wire and really liking the shocks. A couple of people give Harper odd looks as she comes up, no one's really giving her enough mind to ask for ID outside the zoo's walls. People seem a little put off coming towards the area, but then seem to be happier the further they get from it. Laughing, holding hands... very unlike Gotham.

    The coordinates Chas gave John coincidentally would lead him up to a familiar looking cafe racer with hte matte gray helmet with the off-center yellow racing stripe, near a walking path outside the zoo meant to show native flora. He is, in fact, near a particularly positive feeling mature red oak, from which slowly decends Phoebe Beacon, wearing yet another free T-shirt appropriately advertising 'Visit your Zoo' day -- five years ago -- with a giraffe on it. She holds the line of copper wire in one hand near her solar plexus, clear quartz lazily swaying above her chin as her braids hang upside-down.

    "Afternoon, John." she greets him in an absolutely cheery voice. "Can you feel it?"

John Constantine has posed:
    "Soon as I stepped out. What're you doing here? By yourself?" Ohhhh, disappointed Angry Dad Voice. John does it almost as well as Chas does when he puts mind to it. He reaches up to pluck the Silk from his lips, but not until after drawing from it. Eyes *wide* open, he takes a look at things in a way that most people cannot.

    "Feels like you, like Mary Poppins and Mister fuckin' Rodgers had a child," he points out before drawing from his cigarette again. "I was havin' some banana puddin'," he grouses under his breath. "Always, bloody well goes to shit when I'm enjoyin' some banana puddin'."

Harper Row has posed:
Between the EMF meter and the behavior of those around her, Harper looks confused. She pulls a phone out of her pocket and stares at it for a few moments and then shakes her head as she puts it away.

("That's for emergencies. For when I'm in danger. What'd he think of me if people holding hands and laughing made me scared?") Harper thinks to herself. Scanning the area she sees nothing suspicious immediately and so replaces the EMF meter with her recently acquired bug scanner out of the backpack with the rest of the kit with the other supplies for her 'hobby'.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "Mom tried to make ammends and it ended up really awkward right about when she asked when my last confession was. So I was on my way back when this stuff started and it got picked up on my social media radar scan for thinnings and general weirdness. Which, given Gotham, kinda glad I got it but I think I need to ask for a hand refining the search definitions because the amount of complaints about rainbow sprinkles is also weirdly hiiiiooow do you mean it feels like me?" she blinks, and then reaches up, grabs the branch, and nimbly flips down to the ground. "Wait, seriously, Mary Poppins and Mr. Rogers? Fred or Steve? Important... not important --" Phoebe replies to John.

    "... also you hate bananas. Every time I offer you one, you recoil in horror. Is it the potassium?" she questions, regular chatty cathy.

    There are no bugs, but there is a very happy feeling! So very happy, so much happiness --

    "Oh hey, is that one of those Mexican Hairless breeds? Aww, look at the odd little puppy! Pheew -- needs a bath!" someone lilts out.

    It is a quadreped. It's barely visible, with all the magic being fed into the area, but it travels on silent feet -- or rather, hands. Instead of tip-toe, there are four arms, fingers covered with hardened stone twisted into sharpened claws, two burly ones in the front, smoother in the back. It doesn't have eyes where eyes should be, but placed low, under the sagging, graying flesh wrought from the grave. Its maw is a mess of broken rib bones and shards of femurs and humerouses, and as it slowly lurches towards the location of the feel-good epicenter, the second and third ones begin to fade into existence.

    The closer they get, the more solid they appear -- and the worse these heyena-like constructs smell.

John Constantine has posed:
    "Get back up in that tree and *stay there*," John hisses under his breath. He does bossy Dad pretty well too. But he still adds the firm, louder, "*NOW*, just to be sure that it's understood that he means... NOW

    Multi-tasking, it's not as easy to do so with magic as it might be with chewing gum and walking at the same time; in fact it's a lot more difficult than that. The first spell he casts is aimed at Phoebe directly. A mumbled few words in Enochian, an outcast hand and a circle of scrolling squiggles and sigils, a few letters in the language spoken, appears in the air. It glows a soft blue and once it settles around the girl, she'll find herself in a protective bubble that moves *with* her.

    The second one? It's a little more difficult and performing it is like than not to leave him vulnerable through the time it takes. Necromancy is not his cuppa, it's going to take a while. Pulling on the knowledge gained from time spent around a certain Bokor, the chanting is in Creole. The foci of the spell is a necklace of sorts pulled from an inside pocket of his duster; rat skulls and chicken feet, are those human teeth? There's a *reason* necromancy isn't his cuppa, it's *gross*. His intent? To leash those dogs, hold them in place until he can move on to the next bit, the unwinding and untying of the spirits from the twisted flesh they've been forced into.

Harper Row has posed:
Okay, so /that's/ suspicious... the strange animals and the blue glow around that little girl. This is /not/ a job for the electrician's office. And then there's the reaction of the people in the area.

It starts with a woman screaming. Then the fear spreads. As the people begin to move there's jostling and bumping. There's theories that it's an attack by the Scarecrow... and that does nothing to calm down the mob that has just been born.

And, as this is not a job for the electrician's office, Harper uses the chaos of the emerging mob mentality as cover to dash into a bathroom for a quick change. The jacket's reversable and easily covers the armored vest she quickly dons. The hair's sculpted into a fauxhawk with some water, now predominantly the previously hidden purple with the blue being highlights as well as the close buzzed sides rather than the formerly dominant color that it was before. Her backpack is still worn and her spare stungun is in a jacket pocket while the other is held securely in her hand.

"You," she calls out over the noise of the crowd towards Constantine as she steps out of the restroom, "Will electricity take these things down?" without regard to the fact that she is calling the creature's attention to herself as she brandishes her stungun in such a way to illustrate what she is suggesting.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "But John, I can --" Phoebe begins to protest between stay there and *now*, and she wrinkles her nose a moment, then springs right back into the tree, swinging herself back up as she crouches, curling her fingers around her extending staff and extending it out -- until suddenly she's magiced into doing a Glinda the Good Witch impression, her hands pressed against the sides of the bubble as she stays up in the tree, perfectly safe and sound. She does, however, take out her phone and hurriedly type something in.

    People around are beginning to have their enjoyment of survival and common sense overriding the feel good vibes of the trap outside the Africa enclosure, just outside the walls of the zoo proper in a garden area. There's Phoebe Beacon, Outsider and Healer up a tree, in a bubble looking a little more than mildly resigned. There are people around who are running in a panic away. There are now three hyena-like creatures, where instead of proper legs they have mismatched sets of arms for legs, graying, rotting skin and pinprick eyes peering blearily beneath folds of more graying rotting skin, jagged maws beginning to snap. The biggest one gives a low growl at John, stepping forward as the drool draws down from the broken bones, hissing in corrosiveness as it strikes the ground.

    And the trio of creatures begins to laugh. Not like hyenas, but the sound of unhinged men and women, driven to the edge of what they can handle, the laughter of the mad as the two others circle about.

    The largest makes a leap at John, its 'hands' splayed out into cruel claws, trying to hit his chest and his shoulder to try and knock the blue-collar warlock down.

    The second goes for Harper, coming in low and fast, broken bone teeth looking to rip into her leg.

    The third comes behind the large one, trying for John's stomach and hip to take a bite out of Constantine!

    On a very localized band: Any who have Outsider (or can justifiably overlook the Outsiders) gets a ping: "ACID DOGS @ZOO"

John Constantine has posed:
    "Don't know unless you try, luv!" John shouts back, little bit of annoyance there. He's trying to *work* here and his work requires speaking and not to little birds with blue hair. He's holding that necklace aloft, dangling from the end of it amid all the rest of the stuff, centered perfectly, is that an actual shrunken *human* skull. That's what one gets, innit, when asking Papa Midnite for necromantic foci, innit?

    Seriously, Necromancy is *gross*.

    His free hand is outstretched, Hellfire already dancing in its palm, waiting and ready should one of those things get too close. Question is, however, will he notice at all if he's too far gone into casting the spell to pull control away from the one currently pulling the puppet strings on the things? He might, in fact, not.

    The first one coming for him, he nails dead center. Split focus, however, *really* isn't suited to spell casting. The second one gets a bite out of him. He shifts just a little and just in time to keep from being gutted or the like, teeth to upper outer thigh is what the thing ends up with, along with a pained cry from the Laughing Magician and a, "Bloody fuckin' HELL, go find a rubber ball to chew on!" The next blast from his hand is pure force, an attempt to knock it back and away. Might leave some muscle and skin behind but it's better than having his leg chewed off?

    Still holding the necklace aloft, he back pedals and calls out, "If you're gonna try it, Bluebird! Now... might be a good time!"

    The chanting in Creole resumes through gritted teeth and blurring vision. That fuckin' *hurt*. Is his flesh now sizzling? Are his boxers blue with little green Mystery Machines all over them? Like Scooby Doo?

Harper Row has posed:
"Bluebird" eh? Yeah, that works.

Harper is reacting to the name as the attack occurs and barely side steps the bite in time. At this close a range it doesn't take much accuracy to aim at the head of such a large beast. With a squeeze of the trigger the cabled darts snake out at the creature. What ever the effects of the stungun has on the critter the least of it is that its attempt to follow up the bite with a one handed grab at the purple and blue haired young woman fails close enough to cause a slight breeze that Harper can feel though her jeans.

"Woah, nasty things," she says with her eyes wide in surprise behind the slightly tinted shooting goggles that are 'attempting' to conceal her identity.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
Zatanna looks up from the trunk she is rummaging in as though something stung her behind. Old magic, black magic is on the rampage nearby if the hackles rising on her neck can be relied upon.

        PING

One glance at her phone suffices, and the magician drops the old rabbit hutch, full of droppings, back into the trunk, shuddering. Then, with a pursed-lip moue down at her cobweb-covered t-shirt and jeans, she flips her hands over, whispering, "ooZ," and blinks out of existence.

It's not by chance that she flashes back into existence near John. John with fire dancing in his hand and that look in his eyes, signifying that all hell is about to break loose. She always thought it was on the sexy side but would be damned if she ever told him that - no need to encourage a megalomaniac in full swing.

Zatanna's eyes widen when she identifies the source of the bad dog smell. Dogs who have been playing in rotting meat. The magic smells worst.

"Who /did/ this?"

What confronts her is a travesty of magic and life that twists her stomach.

"!ezeerF" she commands, following her first instinct.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    The first dog is nailed, dead center, it shifts around, trying to shake off the effects -- the leader has some intelegence. Like the dog with the boy in it.

    It pulls back, the flesh burning from its head as it snarls and the flesh burns from its skull, its eyes turning from dull to red pinpricks in an intense void.

    The third dog makes its leap and takes a bite out of the Laughing Magician, and at the blast of force is slung backwards, dragging in the grass before it gives a sound of deep, disgusting phlegm being pulled from somewhere inside, rears back onto is rear arms, and hawks a gross loogie at the blue collar warlock. It's disgusting, and any drips splashing along the ground cause sizzling and smoke to rise up.

    The beast coming after Harper gives a low snarl, turning and facing her, some of its graying flesh, reeking of decay sloughing off int he process, threads of denim stuck to its rib-and-broken-bone 'teeth' as it wheels around for a second chance -- and the stun gun its it. There's a peircing, human wail coming from the creature as it bends in a U-shape, head thrown back as it retreats backwards, out of melee range, and begins to circle -- it's limping, though.

    The second dog, the one with a chunk of John in its teeth, licks its broken maw with a raw, stripped tongue, and then freezes, mid-way through the action, at Zatanna's command.

John Constantine has posed:
    Back-up, that he can count on. John offers only a sideways glance and a crooked grin in Zatanna's direction before he just forgets everything else and focuses completely on the spell he's weaving. But the grin is set into a face that's pale and sweaty. That winking denim blue is a little unfocused, pupil a little too pinpoint. That fucking bite *really hurt*. ...and it's still hurting. The stench of acid burned flesh is a bit disturbing.

     As his chanting continues, those with the proper sight for it, will see the tendrils of magic snaking out from that little bauble Midnite provided. It's a dark thing, those tendrils, all shadows and inky black. They reach out for the dogthings, looking to crawl their way *through* them like a needle and thread, to sew them up tight and hold them still.

    It won't be a quick process, but it's a necessary one for what will, eventually, become his next step; using the entwined threads to tear the bodies to bits while leaving the souls inside intact and free. Fast it may not be, but effective it should. He got the damned spell and the foci for it from an expert in the matter of all things dead and controlling them, after all. Repayment on a debt owed, that.

Harper Row has posed:
Sounding a bit shaken by the creatures' presence, Harper calls out, "Seems like a jolt has an effect on them but... they're not that weak to it either though." Sounds like this 'Bluebird' as Constintine called her has more gamer experience than true supernatural experience. As her tazer gun retracts the cables priming itself for another go she yells, "I'm not sure I'm much more than a liability here," adding "(Sure wish my gun wasn't just a prototype still,)" under her breath to herself.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
Damn that grin, Zatanna thinks as she follows the black tendrils wending their way toward the dogs from the occult object in his hand. It is painful to look at the dogs - bodies and souls twisted into nightmares. She takes a deep breath to steady herself and regrets it immediately.

Ignoring the gut-wrenching stench; the Homo Mage concentrates on John, chanting his heart out. A glance tells her that the hole revealing his heart to the world appears to be closed. Even the best of magic could not have healed that hole so quickly. Now, new injuries replace it. Of course, he is fighting when not at his best.

Zatanna lifts her hand, palm up as though presenting the Laughing Magician to the world. - and heeeeereeee is Johnny! The instinct to protect another magician in mid-spell comes into play.

".dica eht ezilartueN !mih dleihS"(Neutralize the acid. Shield him!) The whispered words echo, weaving a shield around John. He might feel a menthol balm wash the bites, changing the acid to water.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe is frustraitedly pounding on the bubble of protection. She might be yelling at John. Might be cursing. Might be speaking in tongues. Hard to say, but she looks pretty angry herself, and she's brought one hand up and is pushing it against the bubble, light forming in her palm as she watches John get injured, watches a dog nearly take out the blue-haired-girl's leg, and Zatanna's arrival.

    The dogs, meanwhile, their brokenness, their crass construction and dark akings, have turned their attention to the two mages now, leaving Harper alone.

    The one whose face has been melted away by hellfire begins to laugh. It's cruel. Twisted. Echoing. Clearest coming from the dog who is just a skull's head now, bone ungrafting, twisting, falling to ash.

    The one that was attacking Harper now has its beady little eyes on Zatanna, and is circling, flanking her, cruelly laughing.

    The frozen one is trying to wrestle free -- until suddenly, they do freeze.

    And split apart in a few thousand little bits of flesh and bone, an unholy confetti of broken bodies, leaving just spirits. Three of them, twisted out of recognition.

    The funny thing is, this close to Phoebe, even with the mark John's placed on her, the spirits are visible without using astral sight. Each of their skins is made like mahogany, dark and twisted wood grains against eyes wide and rolled back, their mouths uncharacteristically hanging down in abhorrant laughter.

John Constantine has posed:
    Yeah, that helps... a lot. It's a little difficult to concentrate on weaving a spell that may be a little outside one's normal wheelhouse when there's acid trying to work its way through flesh and straight to bone.

    Where John's features were strained before, they become more relaxed; not entirely so, the spell still takes concentration, *effort*. Where he was sweaty and pale, he's not so much anymore.

    But the most important bit, without the pain from the acid distracting him, the tendrils become darker, true black - the complete absence of color as they should be. Rather than thicken, they thin out into the fine, precision threads they should be and they move faster toward their end goal.

    Weaving in and out, out and in, around and around, through and through, it's like watching an educational HomeEc video on black magic sewing. When they're all twisted and tied, John makes a motion with his free hand, a quick jerk backwards that will give the metaphysical ends of the magical threads a sharp pull meant to cleave the meatsuits in all those spots twined and tangled. And it was a *messy* business when it happened.

    Necromancy is so *gross*.

    Having wrested control of the spirits finally, John drops to one knee, the injured leg finally giving in such a way that it won't support him any longer. "I'm coming for you, *bitch*," he snarls... sending the message through them before speaking the words, "You are free now, to be as it should be. Return to your rest," in Creole.

    "Zee..." ground out between clenched teeth before he sort of topples the rest of the way over onto his side, right injured leg on the upside, bent a slightly. He might be writhing just a bit. Give him a second, he'll remember to free Phoebe, or make the decision to once he know there's no more coming is like more to the point.

    The leg? It's missing a chunk of thigh, the edges of the wound all acid burned and red and nasty, but there's no *bone* showing, thanks to the efforts of an Ex that still can't quite stand to see the man hurt. For someone that always insists on walking his path alone, he sure has a lot of people that really can't stand to see him hurt, innit so?"

Harper Row has posed:
Seeing the demon dogs down... in the form of vile and odious meat confetti... the newly christened Bluebird says, "Uh, you guys seem to have this under control... I'm going to get out of here and clean up." She doesn't wait for a reply, instead she starts to jog away.

It is at this point that she chooses to pull out her Outsiders phone and, as she departs, she says into it: <<Red Robin this is... Bluebird. Thought you should know that there was an attack by freaky dog things. I engaged... inneffectually... but they were destroyed by a girl in a bubble, a woman in jeans and a dirty t-shirt and a British guy who was smoking before the attack.>>

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
When John's color changes, Zatanna nods, reassured that the spell did its work. Creole necromancy, as wonky as it can be, sometimes requires two spells.

Zatanna watches his consummate magic unstitch soul from body, returning the world to the right balance. That magic poisoned the very air.

It's not that she ignores John's wound. Situational awareness can save your life. Red-faced, Zatanna realizes she had missed a potential threat. Head tilted to one side; she looks up from John's gaping wound (he seems to collect holes in his body as a hobby) to see the Fairy in a Bubble. "She does look like the Good Witch of the West, doesn't she? So what gives, John?"

Relenting, she spreads her fingers and silently calls on the occult to replace the pound of flesh that was removed from John's thigh.

"Nice boxers, babe," she quips with an evil smile.

Crouching by his side, she concentrates on knitting flesh to bone before glancing upward one more time.

John Constantine has posed:
    It's with an absent sort of wave of his hand that John disperses the bubble of protection around Phoebe. If she's pounding on it or leaning on it too hard, she might just topple out of the tree from the suddenness of it being gone.

    "Geraldine," John offers in way of explanation in regards to the 'nice boxers'. The name should be enough. That shit's sacred.

    Knitting back together isn't nearly so uncomfortable as is getting ripped apart, but it's still not the most amazing feeling in the universe. "Fuckin' *bitch*," John spits out, clearly not at Zee, but at whoever sent those disgusting things to begin with.

    Newly formed muscle twitches and jerks like they might after having run a marathon. "I'm going to kill her, bloody well rip her apart like I did those *things*, to shreds until she explodes like a party popper."

    Oh, oh, there's that wild look in his eyes, that *tone* to his voice, that 'John's going to go off half cocked and balls to the wall against something even if it's ten times his size or he hasn't even a clue what he's truly up against yet'. It's the John Constantine equivalent of having the fuse to an atomic bomb lit, and this one seems a quick fuse, burning fast and hot. He's *pissed*.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe does, indeed, fall out of the tree. Her arms flail a moment, but then she tucks, shoulder-rolls, has grass stains on her back, but makes for Zatanna and John.

    Plus side: The feel good trap served its purpose and brought John out to play.

    Phoebe skids to a stop on her knees as she looks to John, and looks to Zatanna, and then breathes out, and just balls her fists at her thighs. She definately looks like she wants to say something.

    "I can take over if you need me to, Miss Zatara." she states. Voice might be familiar of the girl with the glow stick who helped Batman one night. Phoebe even still has a card in her wallet.

    "And you're not going anywhere until you're patched up and you've eaten something, John." she states, with a perfect wet cat expression.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
"What happened to the kid?" Zatanna asks, rising to her feet. Lips pursed, she regards the two with an amused expression and scratches her chin. "Oh, of course, I remember you. How are you doing? He's all yours, by the way."

After a half-step back in preparation to leave, she stops, well aware of John about to go ballistic.

"Who ever that was, you will NOT be going after them without me at your side. Do.you.hear.me, John Constantine? I need to know who would do shit like that. They shouldn't be allowed to do magic. So this regards me, too. I mean that."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "Well." Phoebe answers at the question of how she's doing. After being bubbled.

    "Don't go until he calms down. He needs someone he respects." she states, not looking up at the Homo Magi, and she brings her hands to John's side and above his knee -- provided he doesn't pull away from her, and she focuses her own magic to pick up where Zatanna's healing left off. It's clear that she is /very/ good at this sort of magic, the warming, calming, and then cooling sensations, numbing, buzzing, water-the-wrong-way-through-the-veins feeling rebuilding the injury and restoring the flesh, though her jaw is set and her lips are pressed tightly together.

John Constantine has posed:
    John's attention, the full of it, shifts to Phoebe. "Wait, what? I don't know who you *think* you're channeling there? Paul, Chas, Annie? But that bloody well does *does not* work for me," it's emphasized with a point and then a little 'oh-nonono' wag of that pointing finger. "*You* are a child. You are my student. You do *not* tell me where to go and when."

    Once it has muscle to hold his weight again, John pushes himself up and tests that leg just to be sure it will... hold his weight that is. "What *is it* with the women in my life thinking I'm their bitch to order around?" he grouses under his breath when Zee tosses her hat into the 'telling John what to do ring'.

    He stomps his way over to collect a few pieces of rotting dog meat and shove them into a baggie he pulls from one of those many trench coat pockets. There have been rumors that he's spelled that thing like a bag of holding, they may or may not be true.

    He picks up another bit and eyes it critically before tossing it into the air and vaporizing it with the words, "Turn it back tenfold," spoken in Latin and accompanied by the shimmering, concussive bit of air that vaporized it. She SHOULD feel it, that fucking bitch should feel it... as the magic put into making those things traces back into a backlash of pain equivalent to ten times what those poor tortured souls felt. It's not a killing blow, it's a threat, it's backing up his earlier words, he *is* coming for her.

    Calm? That's funny little Beacon of Hope.

    Manic is more like it, something Zee's seen over and over and over again in him, that mania that sets in when he's set a task on himself, when a wrong needs to be righted and should have been *yesterday* in his mind. It's that 'I failed' mania, failed to stop it when it should have been stopped. He won't fail again.

    He also still only has a thin layer of muscle and skin covering his heart, no bone to protect it. Not a good way to go up against anything or anyone really. Anyone got the balls to tell him so though?

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
Shaking her head in wonder at the by-play between the two, Zatanna is about to double-down on her need to be in on finding the Mage behind the evil sorcery. Instead she says in a low, calm voice to his student, "He respects very few people in this world. He listens to less."

Zatanna is more than happy not to be in on the receiving end of the magic whip John precision broadcasts. It will sting badly when it lands. Narrowing her eyes at the man, she knows that he is physically vulnerable and wonders about the emotional wounds that he experienced. Reaching through this present mania will be hard.

"So you know who it is. Are you going to tell me or am I going to have to cast a spell to find out?"

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "What does it even matter?" Phoebe asks as she hops to her feet, grass stains, blood stains, everything, and she dares to approach John. "You have three-quarters of your thigh, you're missing parts of secondary veins, possibly a chunk of artery and *you have no fucking sternum*!" Phoebe swears, and she is tearing up in frustration from the whole situation. Phoebe almost never curses. Thunder might even be rumbling overhead.

    "IF something hits you in the chest, you're dead. If something hits you in the leg, your vein might burst, you're dead slightly slower. I get it. You think I'm dumb, that's fine," She swallows a knot in her throat, and takes a deep breath "I can live with that, but I know what I'm talking about when I can see your injuries as plainly as I see that vein buldging at your /forehead/. Why do I have to be channeling someone, why can't I just CARE about you?"

    She's flushed, her ears and cheeks dark as she perfectly seething. "/Please/, John. At least don't go alone!"

John Constantine has posed:
    "This doesn't concern you," John offers with a point of his finger in Zee's direction. Of course it doesn't, he walks his path alone lest those he cares about get pulled into the undertow of it. It's always been a thing with him, a guilt carried over friends gone because they got too wrapped up in his shit. Zatanna is not wrong, recent emotional wounds have opened those old ones up wide, leaving them weeping and bleeding and leaving John Constantine all the more determined to do it all *by himself*.

    Everyone in his life's seen it, most pushed away by it in the past, Zee likely one of them. It takes a lot of stubbornness and seriously thick skin to stick by the man when he's determined to not allow it. It's likely not since Nick Nolan turned on them both that she's seen him *this* bad.

     "I've got it well in hand." He's pacing the area, looking at ground through eyes *wide* open, following the trails of it, the bits that are left behind to shimmer in the air. Was she *here* somewhere close? Likely long gone by now, but still... was she here?

    Hellfire flashes in his pupils, the literal stuff, when he turns to face Phoebe. "Because it'll get you dead, luv," he replies, his voice even and flat despite the fire burning. It flickers out almost as quickly as it appeared.

    He doesn't turn back to Zatanna, instead he just holds a hand out, palm facing her, in warning. Do. Not. Because he's pretty sure that she's not going to hold her tongue on the matter.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
Eyes lidded, Zatanna gives Phoebe a look saying, 'Look at him go.' It is a familiar tantrum that he indulges himself in, a trap of his own making. Zatanna sees it as tarnishing his true magic. Why do men have such a hard time seeing the interdependence of all things, seeing that one person's evil affects them all? Beyond that, he pushes those that love him away. It is not Zatanna's mission to save him from himself, in that regard. Mentoring students, having a few close friends will have to fill his heart until he can grapple with his own demons.

"Listen to me, John. Listen. This affects me, too. I do not NEED your protection. I NEED to protect the world from this type of magic and from someone who would bend it to their own ends. Do you understand?"

It takes real willpower on her part to not wave her fingers and dismiss him. She hopes but doubts that he will share the search with her. Instead, "lleps god eht wolloF" (Follow the dog spell) she whispers.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    She was never here -- not here, here nayway. The rift itself is largely gone, just replaced by a hollow, awful magical blank spot, just hanging in the air like the world's ugliest Christmas ornament, threads tied around the air and wound tight -- leading to of all things, a bottle, half-buried in the dirt, behind some bushes. Detrius like that in Gotham isn't going to be too stand-out among the occasional Batburger bag or old newspaper bits. The bottle? Once held Scotch. Inside there are nails, finger bones, the crushed and dried petals of carnations, and blood The Necromancer was acting via proxy -- but how?

    The command to follow the dog spell is also tied to the furious girl with the braids who just an hour before was happily humming in the tree, trying to remember if clockwise or counter-clockwise meant you were getting nearer with the pendelum.

    "And if you run off like this and die, who's going to step in?" Phoebe grips her hands tight.

    "Asenath." she states, turning to Zatanna. "Also went by Julia Thompson while here in Gotham. You can get her picture out of the Gotham Gate last year when she pretended to be my biological mother and kidnapped me to Montana." she states. "She's been sending these dogs that come out of the aether with close proximity to me. Once in the subway. Another here in Gotham. It killed two of the homeless people I cared for and rotted away parts of my arms and parts of my friend's chest with acid. Another in New York, and now again, in Gotham. She has been a constant threat for more than ten months now." she states, and she pulls a cylinder from her pocket, dropping her messenger bag, and in a long and storied history of making fucking terrible choices, she moves.

    It's quick, just like she's used to. Muscle memory is all there as she extends her collapsing staff with a sharp metallic snap, and she plants her leg, bringing the other around to try and rob the distracted John of his standing, and VERY gently graps his weight against hers, and brings her hand to just below his breastbone.

    "And bam."

John Constantine has posed:
    "Have you forgotten, Zatanna?" John asks as he turns slowly in her direction. "Astra, Newcastle, all those lost between then an now? I haven't. It's not *this*," he gestures broadly to indicate the area of 'this', this dog shit... in the literal and stinky summation of the situation ways both. "...that I'm trying to protect you from, luv." His tone might just border on gentle during that last bit.

    Here's the thing though. John? He is not a physical powerhouse. Taking him down with a physical attack might be easy enough. But he's not a slouch when it comes to reacting to ambush attacks, if it were THAT easy, he'd have been dead a very very long time ago. She gets the jump, but in the split second before her hand could actually manage to strike him if the strike were truly a thing that was going to happen?

    She finds herself hit square in her own chest with a concussive blast of force shot from the palm of his hand that he's managed to get between them. Coulda been worse, he could have been startled enough by it that he fell to his favored standby, it could have been Hellfire striking the girl rather than just force.

    Even as it is, that'll sting, it's enough force to send her flying at least ten feet back and away from him.

    ...and BAM. Might have been better to prove her point in ONE move, a straight kick to the chest. Two moves gave him enough time to make his own between them, didnit?

    "Go. Home." John *snarls* as he pushes himself to his feet. "... and be thankful you aren't a pile of fuckin' ASH right now. That was *stupid*, Phoebe." It truly was, one slight little difference in the situation, had he been just a wee bit more distracted, had he thought it a real threat from an *enemy*.

    His heart's beating a little too hard in his sternum-less chest at the thought of how it could have ended.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
"Smart child. Smarter than your mentor, I'd say. Thank you for that. Ten months and I only have wind of this now?" The look she fires at John should sear his skin, leaving blisters. "I had heard of the kidnapping but was away."

Wild eyed with dismay, she watches Phoebe try to land one on John. "Oh, no, no, no." He is too wily for that and too tender to react well. Which, to her chagrin, he doesn't. The tirade reminds her of their worst fights.

Squaring her shoulders, "STOP IT BOTH OF YOU! I don't understand what that was about. But, I do know he was trying to protect you."

Turning to John, "If that is the way you treat the ones closest to you, then good damned luck. Teach her, you goon. I'm going home and will talk to you both when heads are cooler."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    She wouldn't have trusted herself with a kick. Not to a chest she knew was missing a protective partof the rubcage, she can send hundred-pound bags reeling and purposefully break ribs. Part of the 'joys' of training against people who heal themselves is that She had wanted to demonstrate, but actually hurt him. She didn't have the heart to actually hurt him.
    When the concussive blast strikes her, it knocks the breath out of her -- PAINFULLY -- and the girl goes shooting backwards and into the dirt, skidding on the grass as she gasps for breath, every nerve in her body painfully aware of how close that could have been. Her eyes close, and finally that afternoon thunderstorm rumbles into place, though at least seems polite enough to just start pattering around the three magic users.

    "I don't --" she wheezes, but she's cut off a moment, as wisdom catches up to her mouth. She swallows down a remark or two.

    "Have a good night, Zatanna. John." she states, and drags herself up, wincing, to retrieve her bag and head back to New York.

John Constantine has posed:
    "I've only known for a few months," John points out before he's back to it. He'd noticed the bottle before Phoebe thought she could take him down and he fishes a handkerchief from his pocket to pull it from the earth with. Careful not to touch it with bare skin, mage's be paranoid like that, he studies it a moment before looking around for one of those things oft found on the streets and sidewalks of Gotham; an old discarded bag or the like, something to stow the bottle away in. Whatever's found, he dumps its current contents and replaces them with his little treasure.

    "Reflex," he also tells Zatanna. "She's lucky I was able to switch it up in time, was too late to not let *something* go." It's the truth of it, the energy was there, the magic built, he had to let it go... force for fire seemed the better option. He turns to watch Phoebe head off and adds, "I could have killed her, split second the other direction, I would have killed her." The fact of it only cementing his resolve... his is a path best walked alone.

    Those faded denim blues turn back to Zatanna, tired and haunted and filled with the shadows of the demons that always seem to stalk him, both personal and literal. "You help me on this and that's it, aye? Then you walk away again, don't look back." It's something at least.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
Eyes flashing, "I'm not asking you to marry me, damn you. This is business that involves us all." She won't be sucked in by his sad weariness. All magicians carry the burden of having seen too much, it is part of their path to not become world weary.

Zatanna turns to watch Phoebe's retreating form with an unfathomable expression on her face. Returning her gaze to Constantine, "She is a resilient one, that one. Smart and kind hearted. Don't mess that up, John." Mouth flattened into a grim line, "That was a close call for both of you." After a sharp exhale, "Good. If I find out you didn't call me, I'll curse you. Believe me." With a snap of her fingers, she flashes away, leaving a leaf to twirl where she was standing.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    And as that leaf twirls, the winds pick up with a late summer storm rolling in over the city. John would be able to see the black cafe racer and the black-and-yellow helmeted rider disappear into a cross-city tunnel, headlight switching on. People are beginning to return to the area as if there wasn't some magically pitched battle here.

    And John Constantine? Well, he's got to make his own way home, doesn't he?

John Constantine has posed:
    John stands there a moment, his bottle in his old brown bag making him look all the more like a drunken bum. He looks down at the thing for a moment and smiles a little, all crooked and arrogant. Gotcha now, bitch.

    He murmurs a few words under his breath to open his own way home. The rest of his evening will be spent with that bottle of bones and nails and carnations and the BLOOD of that Necromancer. He'll have it figured out by morning or die in the trying to.

    One step closer, one bit more prepared, to walk his damned path alone.