Owner	Pose
John Constantine	Once he formulated a plan and with no one around to try and stop him, John vanished from New York via that wretched house.     Some where in the middle of nowhere, random and maybe not even in the States, some isolated field in the middle of England's countryside more like than not, John's spent a night and half a day setting up the circle and making sure every ward he's tattooed on his own person is blazing with power. He's calling this meeting 'in peace' as it were, but he's not stupid. He takes measures to protect himself regardless.     Calling this one isn't a complicated matter as it might be with some others. He does, after all, have a connection to this one; it's a connection that burns in his blood every second of every day.     He surveys his work, steps carefully out of the circle formed of stones carved with sigils and ancient languages, white spray paint and his will. He flicks open the lighter, that beloved Bic that represents Chas's absolute undying devotion to him and lights the circle with touch of magic fueling those mundane flames. He's not going to wait to light it after, not with this one.     Once flames meet flames around the circle's edge, he calls out, "Nergal! I think we need to talk! You know you fuckin' need me, so show in the circle or not at all. Otherwise, I walk away from it and leave you to be torn to bits by it all!"
Hela	The bar for foolishness in the world is distressingly low. Humanity blunders into trouble all the time. Something out of the ordinary convinces a man to make a bum deal for short-term gain. Next thing you know, he makes a killing in crypto and toddles off with a fat bank account in the City. The fatted calf has no time to enjoy the fruits of his labour before the debt comes due -- it always comes due -- and now the boyo from Bristol swaggering in a Man U polo and jeans fits... well. Well enough. Makes the whole business of the overpriced swill they serve up at Artesian a little more bearable, watching how the distracted waiters judge the nouveau-riche meatsuit and the girls all pile close in hopes of smelling that sweet, sweet successful marinade. They might want their cut off the old block, but he no sooner hears the lustful whisper of a deal in his ear than shit rings. An overly expensive phone trills obnoxiously loud. Girl wrapped around his finger can wait, those crisp denials hot on his lips as he saunters by an intangible pull to one of the art-clad byways a watering hole the calibre and price of Artesian commands. Unironic modern art -- burned bulls, he fucking hates modern art -- peers down on him as he palms the phone, and summariy scorches three copper-and-brushed-tin shapes supposed to embody the dove of peace or some shite. Slag drips down the exposed brick walls. "It would-"     A sidestep leads him into the flame-swirled circle.         "Fucking-"             Shadows roar and scuttle to evade him.                 "Be-"                     He turns to John, lip curled in disgust.                        "*You*."                     A disgusted breath.                 "Always stinks-"             He lounges in the ward-blaze, arrogance and steel.         "But that's what you get-"     Entitlement turns that handsome countenance sour. "An expiration date."
John Constantine	John's standing there, Silk Cut dangling casually from his lips, lit by that same zippo, when Nergal arrives. "Seems yours may be coming due before mine way things are going," he points out with the that cigarette bouncing up and down with each word. He reaches up to pluck it away after a draw and adds, along with billowing smoke, "That'd have a wee bit of irony, wouldnit?"     Show no fear, even if it's only bravado and stones the size of Texas keeping him in place.     "Everything you know, come to rely on... it's being destroyed, innit? And *you* can't fix it. Soon 'nuff, whatever little corner you have left down there will be empty and gone, or worse... owned by someone else. Noose is tightenin', Nergal. Might wanna watch with the insults if you want my help with it, aye? Or should I send you back and walk away?"
Hela	"Says the man who cheated me out of a contract." Other than the faint ruddiness to his cheeks, easily dismissed as a drinker's patina, the man is only a man. Shock of brown hair artfully tousled for length to sweep in a wave that models would envy drifting in the heat, he smirks. All possessive attitude claims the space he occupies. "How quick to divorce yoruself from my fate. As if the debts are any different or extricable." Nergal smirks. Lips should cover his teeth just fine and they do, but leave a razor-thin margin for pointed ivory to emerge in a barbed smile. Show no fear. Even if the bastard can taste it and chew on the morsels through the barriers John erected against him. "Bit of show and razzle-dazzle for me?" he extends the last vowel. "Reckon that says something. So, boyo, you brought tidings of the end of days. We might need a cupcake with a candle on it to celebrate. I /had/ a cupcake with a candle on it." He sounds put off from that. "So be quick and to the point. I didn't even get to lick the icing off."
John Constantine	"I fix it and six people thereafter that you can never touch, not in life, not in death, not ever, *ever* will they be yours, no matter the circumstances, no matter if they beg you to take them in my stead. *EVER*. And they fall under your protection from your ilk. They call, you come to aid them, not harm or hinder in anyway."     Seems John's all about cutting to the chase here too. He does pause to take a drag from his Silk before he continues. "Break the rules of the deal, forfeit your claim on me. I fail at my task and I'll figure a way that you hold the only claim on me, and you know I can do it." So cocky! But really, the only reason he hasn't tricked his way out of all of it thus far? He's better off for it, better for none in Hell agreeing on who gets him, therefore none *wanting* him there. "Those are my terms. Those and that the next *request*, should it be granted, comes with no strings." He lets it all settle, particularly the fact that he rather has the upper hand in this one, for once.     ...and then, "It's in your best interest, should you wish this be resolved before it's too late and you've either been destroyed or lost everything, that you tell me everything you know that would speed up this whole process. If not, I'll figure it out my fuckin' self, maybe after they've gotten to you, torn you to shreds and maybe before the end is brought about after that. Up to you. Tell me what you know and give yourself better odds of surviving long enough to get to the other side of it... or don't and I still fix it before it brings the end of all it."     He smiles, devilish thing in its own right, that. He tucks that Silk back between his lips and raises his chin slightly, presumably to keep the smoke angled away from his eyes, but it does look a little as if he's staring down his nose at the demon in the circle. "Think on it, cupcakes'll like be no more if I fail, is sole ownership of my soul worth all it? Because that's all you'll get if you should survive my failure."
Hela	Those brown eyebrows arch, stretching up a smooth brow unweathered by cares of age. So the match begins between them, deal thrown down in terms and the infernal pactmaster breaking into a leering grin that contorts a 5-o'-clock shadow but a little. "John, John, John." Three times fast, protectie circle. Three times widdershins, cursed and summoned. "Six people you demand *I* come to help when they call. Lifetimes long? We'll have to talk names and do-you-reckons. Because a few, boyo, not even you get to name a free pass on. Be seen to be nepotistic, don't you know? We operate on a meritocracy system, right and proper, innit? You know the deal. Whole business of charming seventh sons of seventh sons and their bloody fucking line direct off the distaff is appallingly undemocratic. Positively patriarchal when you get right down to it, and we all know your opinion of dads, don't we?" He blows at the smoke. "Wouldn't be right to conveniently bestow a grace like that on a thankless lot." A bit of a dash with his fingers pushes aside the brindled smoke and flame as he approaches the ward's edge but doesn't bother to cross, just enough to circle the hunter rather than be the hunted. Keeping eye contact between them comes almost as a sinful admission of amusement. He really would like that bloody cupcake. Only a true cretin would separate a man from a sugary treat procured with liqueur at its heart, a blasphemous concoction of dessert and libertine vice. He chews his inner cheek and breaks into a bleak laugh. "Terms for the former banged out before the latter. You. You I know the value of contracting with. Best be getting a cosigner to hold much weight." A pause then and he gestures. "Won't be doing it old style. Vellum nowadays is mass produced in China, hardly worth the quid you would waste on it. Poplar paper, a tamarisk pen, and a horn nib." He pauses. "Bull horn, boyo, don't bother with anything else. The real sort. None of this flash shit either. You're going to write it in blood." Of course. How else to bother with a deal between them in what already is a vessel for their commingled faults? "We'll want for a witness. Agreed on a Lilim, midrank, as the proper neutral arbiter?"
John Constantine	"Don't go anywhere," John replies with more than a touch of 'snark' coloring his words. It's not likely Nergal *could* just yet, he knows he can't hold the guy for long, but maybe long enough. The items mentioned, after all, are merely a quick jaunt through a portal and into a room where such things are kept in a House filled with Mystery and so much more, right? He's gone maybe ten minutes tops.     The pen, the horn nib and four different little stacks of paper. "White? Black? Necklace? Lombardy?"     Hard to believe the man was half dead with blood more scotch than ... blood just a few days ago, innit? Still determined to walk his path alone, but walking it; all Trench Coat, Cigarettes and Arrogance.
Hela	"And miss the fireworks or the storytime you've promised? The great John Constantine, spinning me a yarn." Nergal cracks a bitter black laugh from the deepest recesses of his adopted body, shaking lightly with it. He isn't going to pace around or sit on the ground. Man has a phone. Man knows how to use it. He scrolls through a few deliciously obtuse websites and mocks the trolls trying to rile up the crowd. A few comments here, a tug there, and all suddenly becomes a little war of flames and bitching. The business round about the Lilim is another matter, but so too the damned adopt technology as it suits them. They might even play out a betting pool between them, or the group chat full of demonic emoji is entirely a thing of your imagination, dear reader. Suffice, he's not bored. "Do I *look* like I want anything to do with Lombardy poplars? Garbage trees, not a point of value among them. Man writes on that if he wants to send his sweetheart a bit of shite smut or convince her to hang herself. The white." Another buzzy sound from that thing he finally taught to shut up, and he taps the glass. "Gusion should be suitable. Procel otherwise. No circle. You want your deal, you accept a judge as is, boyo. You want information to fix this little tiding. Define /fix/."
John Constantine	"I drop it when the judge is here," John replies. He settles the other three stacks on the ground. His Silk about spent, he flicks it to the ground and lights another. For his own part, he finds a nearby tree stump to settle on to while they wait. "How to restore the balance is a good place to start, but if you'd rather not, seriously we can handle the rest of it and I'll go on my way. Maybe I figure it out, maybe I don't. We'll see what you have left if I don't, aye? Besides my wretched soul. You and me, alone, no cupcakes, for an eternity. Sounds a party, dunnit?"     He turns those faded denim blues toward Nergal, a little flame burning in the pupils of each. "Face it Nergal, I fight for them, but you need them more than I do. Humanity, you've nothing if this wipes it all from the face. For me? If they're gone? I get a fuckin' break. You? An eternity with no baked goods, no fun, no deals, no suffering to cause."
Hela	8-6-6-5-3-0-9. He takes a perverse amusement in dialing that number, in sending that message flying through the aether. As if he could be denied, when he wishes to be heard. Mortal frame does nothing to limit the choice. "Yes, you bloodless tosspot, now." The phone smokes. It was nice while it lasted. He carelessly confines it to his pocket, and ignores that any smoke arises from the jeans he wears with a pricetag in the eyewatering range. Cryptocurrency does well for damned souls. Kings of Hell at his beck and call are rather the deal, aren't they? With a curl of smoke, Procel will be on his way soon enough. "You for an eternity is already promised. You, me, and one last frosted meringue. Whatever's left of it, few little crumbs. Quite the party." He looks over the arrangements, and then toothily grins right back. "You want to fix the balance. Bit out of your bailiwick, isn't it? You plan on delivering it to favour /me/? Because that we can agree to but it means paying a pretty penny to tilt it black, not to just plain even or shiny bright goodness. None of that horse shite. You stop the decline, walk it back to our advantage, where no hosts of the Silver City get their knickers untangled and bothered down here. The shining twats get their say, the deal burns and none of the provisions kick in. I clear?" Nergal's sharp teeth shine again. "Figure you should know when things look peachy or when they flay your soul just spitting the words out, looking all virtuous and sterile. Not your scene, not mine." Fingers crook. "Name them. Your six. Sinister little match, and you accept I don't do them a blank cheque for favours. Specifics. It isn't open ended for that isn't a gift we give."
John Constantine	"Luck convincing the others of that, aye?" John points out. "I take it back to where it was before it started, that's the deal." He stands and walks toward the circle. With an unnecessary lick of his index finger and thumb, he reaches out to pinch a bit of flame between them and the circle breaks.     He walks right into it and right up to Nergal. His smile's still there, that arrogant, cocky, devilish thing. "Tell me what I need, Nergal. Stop playing games with it. Tell me the end game, give me what I need to take on the end. And you know what, you'll likely win both humanity surviving and my soul. Because you know me and if I have what I need, I won't stop at my own potential demise to get it done."     He reaches into an inside pocket of that trench coat he wears like some sort of tattered knight's armor and produces a piece of paper. Each name is written in full to the extent that he knows it: Chas's, Meggan's, Phoebe's, Nettie's, Renee's and Geraldine's. "They come under attack by any of your ilk and call on you, you show to tell the fuckers to back off, that they're yours. But they never will be, not in the true sense of it. Never. You will never lay claim to anyone on this list. In life or death, even should they claim to wish it so. Never."
Hela	Six souls. Eight billion. No trouble there whatsoever. Nergal watches John through narrowed eyes, every gesture dissembled like someone watching a stage performance to debunk it or pull it up better. "Written on poplar in blood, with the pen. Anything less won't cut the mustard. We do it properly or it's hardly worth bothering over now is it? Tattered little papers like receipts at a cheap restaurant versus something writ for the ages." Can't fault him for having style as he paces back and the air thickens, a sign of the impending arrival of one of the Lilim. The hollow in his chest forms first, the burning glyphs that come together in geometric lines, the spikes bleeding in. Might be his roundabout way of offering the higher-ranked demon privacy or a fight against the thinned barriers of worlds. Nergal steps up to the circle's edge, fire skimming away in shadows. "You misstep, you play for the other teams and you forfeit everything. All of it. Heaven, the Hells, the gods, the Court of Death are all forbidden to you. No deals to be made there, and I don't care if it wears nothing but a smile and jumps out of a birthday cake." He points a finger, ruddy-tipped. "You won't reach that birthday doing it any way but mine. I have a contact on the inside. You just interrupt me if you know these details and we toodle right along." Teeth shine again. Oh, he might be salivating over that cupcake. Maybe the whole damned building of them. Lick a few crumbs and smirk. "The Court of Death slapped their real estate together to one realm in a power play. Letting the toffs fight it out thins the herd and effectively consolidates their position at the top of the pyramid. The few reap the spoils and get leverage that comes with a monopoly. It's just business, commoditizing death. Be sure the top dogs won't be sharing though. Hela and Pluto keep a tight hand on shit. I might actually appreciate it were they not edging in on business, and therefore a fine thing to tear down." He leers, breath liquor-ridden and smoky, blown out with the clash of copper and iron. "But someone is bankrolling that little venture. Had to fork over a lot of souls and cover to keep the big boys from noticing. Zeus is doing fuck all, Odin can't see past his arse, Shiva is absent, and it goes. It's not coming from inside the pantheons and fucking isn't us, else we would have that head decorating my library." A shrug then. "You twist Death that far out of shape, you best bloody expect something old and mad will come out to snap everything back in place and sweep the whole lot of ingrates out. Something with teeth. A lot of fucking teeth. Been an age since we watched a civilization fall, you know. Went chewing through every little godling that got up and mighty, and even the Morningstar wouldn't have stood a chance against -it-."
John Constantine	"Aye, I know your little missus is responsible for at least three of the current vacancies," John replies before, even as, he's going through the messy business of a bull horn nib and blood on poplar paper. Might as well be Nergal writing it with the way both their blood mingles in his veins.     Once it's finished and signed, he holds on to it until the Lilim is here to witness.     "A lot of fuckin' teeth, go figure," he murmurs under his breath. He holds the paper out by its edges and waggles it back and forth. "Put a little extra in there, you agree that Meggan Puceanu never sits beside me through it, I'll have it done within a year, yours and yours alone. I'll figure a way out with the others, cancer'll come back when the one's broken more like than not and you won't even have to work for it. I'll wither, die and be yours."
Hela	"You had one, you'd know the value of an equal partnership. Merits after a few billion years." His smirk deepening, Nergal isn't cowed. But then short of debasing himself in front of the First or the Presence or Michael, he probably wouldn't know how. John struggling with the pen is really just a cherry atop the whole strand. A flick of his fingers, and he hisses, "And since you ask: Demiourgon. Dicit deum Demogorgona summum, cuius scire nomen non licet. Or that shoddy bit from Spenser:     'A bold bad man, that dar'd to call by name     Great Gorgon,     Prince of darknesse and dead night,     At which Cocytus quakes, and Styx is put to flight.' Fucking twat couldn't say a straight line from that crooked mouth any better than the Athenian could transcribe three letters. That's why you never get up in an earth goddess and put her away mad." Life goals, John Constantine. Nergal holds his hand out, and the almost too long fingers insist on the paper. "That thing does not *die*. No more than our absconded, absent gaoler does. Am I clear? You reckon on it faffing about in some distant miserable corner on the other side of the universe, around the cooling of the matter in the universe or in the great utter dark at the end, bully for you. It counts. You tell me some shit about it being dead, I claim everyone you ever met and then some, and make sure everyone else knows *you* put them there."
John Constantine	"Don't underestimate me, or at least my ability to make it wish it were dead and have a want to be gone for a very long time," John quips in return. Truth of the matter, his blood runs like ice in his veins at the thought of it. King of the Poker Face, he's still that innit he?     He hands over the papers before stepping out of the circle. He waits for Nergal to do whatever needs done on his end before pulling a few little seeds from his pocket. Just a few of the many he collected. He holds one up between his index finger and thumb and comments, "I thought these were nothing but a tasty snack on my last trip under. Maybe I'm wrong." He gives Nergal *just* enough time to maybe realize what John's holding before the portal opens and he's on his way home.
Hela	Nergal smirks. "There are places that not even your mortal arts reach. It can find them," he says as a low, contemptuous confession. "You'd call my name long before your end there. That would be a favour owed in my column. Remember, boyo. Far worse things have ever happened than death." A promise is a promise, after all. The Lilim who would be a king in Hell sharply turns a look, emerging from the gloom of the Shropshire night. Horns crown his head, the ashen-grey face and white armour limned in those golden lines. Burning patterns twist and turn in their endless symbolic arrangements, hard edges and cascades done. He smells of rot and sky, the vellichor between books and the first bite. "It is witnessed, Bull of Enlil." The portal shudders. Gone, and there, no more mortals. Both demons look at one another, then away. <<Does he know the River?>> <<Obviously fucking not.>> Nergal spits a wad of phlegm and tissue out onto the ground. "Now are we getting to that fucking bakery or do I have to rip out June Payne's soul to try a blood wine red velvet cupcake?"