8513/Grave Dirt

Grave Dirt
Date of Scene:	01 November 2021
Location:	Woodlawn Cemetery
Synopsis:	On a drunken walk through the streets of New York, John Constantine is nudged toward Woodland Cemetery, but Synchronicity doesn't leave him hanging and alone to defeat the rising dead and the necromancer behind it. Blake Riviere is probably the only reason he got to the other end of this one alive.
Cast of Characters:	John Constantine, Blake Riviere

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John Constantine has posed:
    It's been a fucking shite ass day. Truth be told of it, a lot of them have been lately for John Constantine, but either tonight was just more shite than usual or it was just the last little bit of shite he could handle on the steaming pile of shite.

    Either way, the end of it finds him walking the streets of New York, bottle of scotch in hand. Whole bloody bottle, right out there in the open. It's not often that he gets sloppy drunk, between his tolerance for the stuff and the demon blood in his veins, sloppy drunk isn't an easy task for John.

    ... he's sloppy drunk. So much so that he's singing 'Johnny I Hardly Knew Ya' by the Dropkick Murphys pretty loudly. Plus side? The man can sing.

    He isn't, however, so sloppy drunk as to not notice something out of place as he passes by some of the 'closer to the street' graves of Woodlawn Cemetery. No, his attention is drawn immediately to the three, side by side, disturbed graves. "Bollocks!" he yells, face turned toward the Heavens. It sounds a little like an American might exclaim 'Really?!'

Blake Riviere has posed:
Truth be told? Halloween was one of Blake's favorite nights, the irony of being who and what she was when so many were running around dressed as parodies of witches, demons, and of course- vampires.

Red ribbons, black leather, stockings...she looked like some gothic dream, and she fit right in. Besides, it was...kinda endearing to watch humanity in its celebrations.

One 'pickup' turned drink later and her companion for the evening was tucked away in a motel to sleep it off, leaving the 'Draculina' lazily strolling through the space near the cemetary when she frowns, a 'scent' on the air and a shiver on her senses.

Magic, and not the friendly warding or blessing kind.

John Constantine has posed:
    John stands there, at the fence, staring at those three graves that he can immediately see muttering, "Please let them be dug up, not out... please let them be dug up and not out." He pulls the flashlight, little penlight thing, from the pocket of his threnchcoat and shines it on one of the three. "Awwww, BLOODY HELL!"

    Then he shines that tiny little light out over the cemetery to reveal, just within reach of that little light's beam, at least a dozen more disturbed graves. He spends a second talking to himself a little more, "Whatcha gonna do, you're John fuckin' Conssstna.. Cansont... Constantine. Can't *leave*."

    Then he's 'hopping' the fence. Which really more amounts to him getting to the top of it and tumbling hard to the ground on the other side. "Owwwww," he bemoans quietly. But he pushes himself to his feet and walks to the first upturned gave he saw to squat beside it.

Blake Riviere has posed:
A shift, but this one is quite literal. Air chills and fog shifts as the woman's silhouette turns to shadow and her form moves in mist, chilling and cold.

Then it's reforming, the woman revealed as she sits perched atop one of the gravestones near the profane disruption, an exhaled sight announcing her as she touches pale fingertips to her brow.

"You're so loud...I don't suppose you're the one disturbing the resting dead around here? That would make the night so much simpler."

John Constantine has posed:
    "Not me..." John raises a finger to his lips to actually taste the dirt from around the grave. He stands, losing his footing for a moment but recovers before he actually goes down. Then his faded denim blues focus on Blake, well the best that he can focus on anything right now.

    "Whadda ya know 'bout it?" he slurs. He clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth a time or two, like that way when someone's tasting something. He makes a face, spits on the ground and announces, "Don' think it's Midnite either."

Blake Riviere has posed:
A sigh, she lowers her hand and slips from the stone to stretch her arms over her head. "I'm not a sorceress, that is my childe. But I am enough to feel and...smell what is going on here. And despite what people think, it is very much not the night for it..."

The vampiress' stretch comes to an end, the woman folds her arms under her bust. "Someone is up to mischief."

John Constantine has posed:
    It's like his brain clicks backwards from Blake's words to her arrival, to actually *looking* at her and he says, "You're a vampire. I wouldn't eat me if I were you. luv. I don't taste very good." There's truth to his drunken babble though. John really *doesn't* taste good to vampires, his blood's not exactly healthy to them either.

    His brow furrows and his gaze travels out over the expanse of the Big Damned Graveyard. If his third eye was a physical thing, it'd be opening in the middle of his forehead right about now, but it isn't, so it doesn't. He points off toward a small grouping of trees, then toward another, then another, then another and then one more...

    "...and here they come."

    Typically zombies are portrayed to be slow, mindless, shambling things easily dispatched in smaller numbers. It's not always the case though. Mindless sure, as it's not *their* mind controlling them when necromancy's involved. But slow? Shambling? Not *always*.

    It's only a beat after his Sight gave him the locations that the cemetery is a live with movement coming from those trees. Quick, agile, even the ones long dead and rotting off the bone and they're all heading for John Constantine and Blake Riviere with a purpose, a deadly purpose.

    "Best we not let'm get to the fence, huh?" Because these Zombies? Look as if they could go right over it and out into the city streets.

Blake Riviere has posed:
"Were it not for your demonic stench in your veins...your general hygiene would be more than enough to render you unappealing anyway." the vampiress speaks in her accented tones, a smirk of amusement on her painted lips. "I'm usually a little more selective and I prefer the willing donors anyway. They're hardly lacking these days."

She'd say more, but her own eyes shift from that natural blue to a deep luminescent red, her gaze shifting towards the creatures in turn.

Fangs extend, the air carries a chill as she lifts her hands. Fast, dangerous and deadly were all things she could match, the game she could play...but even then.

"As I said," Blake speaks, taking a step toward the charging zombies. "I am no sorceress, I am not the one to dispell whatever wakes them. But this is Halloween night...and I am quite happy to be the monster needed to fight these creatures."

John Constantine has posed:
    "I resemble that remark." It's true, John hasn't changed since... well, he's still wearing the same clothes from yesterday. Not a common thing for him, despite what people may think. It's just been a *shite* day.

    "How 'bout I help even the odds a wee bit first, luv, then... that...dispellin' thing that wakes them?"

    Because really, they are about to be *overrun* by the things, thirty? Maybe, not like there's time to stop and count.

    John closes his eyes for just a second, trying to center his topsy turvy drunk brain. When he opens them, Hellfire dances where denim blue once was and the same dances over his hands. One blast of the stuff from each and then there's five less. "Tell me when they get to manageable numbers, luv!"

    But he's *exhausted*, worn to the bone, spent to the core of him and *drunk*, so the more he wastes on 'cutting down the numbers', the less he'll have for 'cutting down the source'.

Blake Riviere has posed:
It's a little less dramatic Blake moves into action, only the briefest moment of consideration given to admire the blast of hellfire. It had been a while since she'd seen such magic, almost enough to have her nostalgic and definately enough to have her missing Ariah once more.

But now to business!

She didn't have a weapon, so this was going to get messy. She coiled and then...a blur, a shape near formless moving faster than the eye could see, impacts from something that could easily lift 50 metric tons hitting at supersonic speeds.

Zombies seemed to fly apart, sliced or splattered. While admittedly Blake might not have been able to ensure flawlessly that none escaped over the fence given their speed and higher function than the average...clearly the vampiress was plenty capable.

Hell, it was nice to let loose and wonderful that she was so fully fed.

John Constantine has posed:
    When one rushes in a little too close for comfort, John staggers back and trips over a damned headstone. He goes sprawling and ends up with one right on top of him. Infection, not worry here, getting one's throat torn out by human teeth? Still a very painful possibility.

    It gets in a chuck of shoulder where his trenchcoat flew open on one side, but that's as far as it gets before a another blast of magic, just force this time, blows the recently - within the month at least - deceased little old blue haired granny up and off him.

    He's quick to scramble to his feet, but John may as well be moving in slow motion compared to Blake.

    "Keep'm busy," he calls out when his gaze focuses on a specific mausoleum in the distance. He takes off running... and, of course, more than a few of those that are left turn to give chase. Magically, he *is* the biggest threat to whatever, whoever's controlling them.

    Ever played a game of capture the flag where the flag's a drunk wizard from Liverpool and you're the only one on the team trying to prevent his capture? Well, now that can be marked off the bucket list Blake.

    He had a head start, what with the way he took off so sudden like, but... they're gaining on him *quick*.

Blake Riviere has posed:
Sure enough, Blake continued her tearing through the recently reanimated, her form spattered with stagnant blood and gore leaving her to pause and gag.

For all her power and strength, for all her immunity to plenty of the normal vampire's weaknesses? The ingesting of stagnant 'dead man's blood' wasn't particularly healthy for her.

It was a moment long enough that John would indeed have to run like hell for a little while longer...and things might get a little tense until a large 'splatter' of a headstone hurled into the creature grasping for John's literal coattails.

Appearing a moment later, close enough to dig once beautifully manicured nails into the skull of the next creature leaping for John and tossing it aside like a ragdoll she hisses.

"Sooner would be better than later!"

John Constantine has posed:
    One thing about growing up mostly on the streets, spending one's formative teenage years bar hopping and ... well, just living the Liverpudlian dream? A boy learns how to duck and weave at the very least. John does it well enough. He might even get a good solid blow in here and there when needed, it's just inside his wheelhouse to do so, maybe a door handle of the wheelhouse anyway.

    He might have stumbled, he might have took a hit here and there, but largely - read probably almost entirely - due to Blake's assistance, he makes it to that aforementioned crypt of the dead.

    But he doesn't bust down the door. No, he's not going to walk right on in on something or someone that knows he's coming.

    "Just *cover me*, luv!" he calls back before sending one that got to close up in a bonfire of Hellfire.

    Then, putting his complete trust into a total stranger - blood sucking one at that - John closes his eyes and begins to chant.

    Most of what he knows of Necromancy, John's learned from his best frenemy, Papa Midnite. So it's from that source that he borrows what he does next. The words are Haitian Creole, individually they're not important but anyone that understands the language would get what he's doing right off. He's pulling on the dark magic animating these corpses like one might tug on a thread. When he finds the thread, then he goes for another one and another until he's pulling them together into a rope...

    And then it's time for a game of tug-o-war.

    Blake will notice it, not only in sensing the magic, but in the way the zombies begin behaving strangely, one second they're still trying to get through her to John to rip him apart, the next they're stuttering, confused, turning toward the crypt as if they might want to attack something in *there*.

Blake Riviere has posed:
If nothing else, the 'Tug-o-war' of metaphysical mental control did make things a little easier. If the zombies didn't know where they were going, they weren't really ready for the bloodied bloodsucker to attack.

She might be crushing, slicing and pummeling the animated dead to inanimate pieces but...damn, there really was a fair few of the buggers. Just how many graves -were- there?

Chanting continues, Blake's makeup, hair and outfit were verry much ruined by the brutal slaughter she'd had to inflict on things that pretty much had to be utterly destroyed to stop coming.

Yeah, maybe this one wasn't her 'favourite' night anymore.

John Constantine has posed:
    The chanting continues, volume building, speed building, until finally, when Blake might think it's the end for both of them, when she might think they're never going to stop coming and John must be sort of crazy fraud that doesn't really know what he's doing at all, it happens.

    It can be felt, almost like a snap in the air when he pulls control away from the necromancer doing their best to turn John and Blake into so much zombie kibble.

    "I hope you're not one of those what's worried about killin' the bad guys!" John bellows before he finally busts that door down with a blow of force just as he turns that tide of walking dead that way. ...into the mausoleum. There's only time for a peek at the man inside, he's maybe thirty, pretty average build and height and he's standing at a make shift alter with all sorts of nasty voodoo on it. Just a peek and then he's screaming as the dead he rose from their grave rip him apart.

    When the screaming stops, John whispers one last thing in Creole, "Return to your rest."

    ...and they all hurry their ways back to their own graves, burrow into the ground and leave nothing behind of themselves. It's a little gross, even the bits and pieces ripped asunder by Blake *try* to crawl back.

    It leaves John doubled over, hands on his knees, fighting to catch his breath and to not vomit.

    "John Constantine," he offers between gasps. "I'm... gonna go now. I own ... the Laughing Magician in Hell's Kitchen and... I owe you a drink."

    A portal opens in front of him without him even saying a word, a glimpse through it will reveal the parlor of an old Gothic style home. He steps through it and he's gone.