tampered | Log; Ongoing

"Uuuhnn?" grumbled a voice near the Corinthian, the Englishman stirring as the weight of sleep softly gave, but still firm. Grogily he rolled towards his companion (even if there was not a lot of space to roll to begin with), blonde hair tossled and eyes foggy; not quite back in the waking world yet, not yet. His dreams faded. "S'wrong with you?"

The middle of nowhere.

Funny thing to say when one is caught in a place that exists outside time, outside the world, and flat-out outside of everything.

Still, it was the best way to explain just where she was at present;

Fortunately she had the presence of mind to drag herself into an out of the way corner of the alley way..
..Or perhaps not so fortunate considering the spreading puddle of blood that seeped from the patched seam in the front of her suit.

That was Scarab, though.
There hadn't been time to baby the bullet wound inher shoulder, and though Chrno had done a good job following her directions during thier impromptu doctoring session, the sutures had popped when she had been climbing, and clambering and searching high and low.

Add to this the over use of her implanted endorphin 'stim, and you get a near-comatose state for a few days.

So now, caught within the prison of her mind, she slept...slept...

....and dreamed.

"Get up," he said to John, giving the man's shoulder a nudge before he swung his own legs over the edge of the bed, "it's Scarab, we have to find her."

The Corinthian kept a hand covering his teetheyes until he could find his sunglasses. There, on the table, still his third pair of shades and hopefully the last he'll need for at least a few months, ideally a year. He plopped the gunmetal gray frames and black lenses on his face then turned to the Englishman while searching for his jeans. No time to waste.

"She found me in a dream, she's in fucking trouble," he said to the blonde, "I couldn't get a lock on her, but that big helmet head shit is with her."

Did the groggy magus catch the severity of the situation yet?

Constantine grimaced, remembering the brief adventure with him guiding her down where the magic was, wherever it had been in this City. Strangely, ever so uncharacteristically of him, even he was not so sure. Typical. Worked when he didn't want it, did not when he needed it, but that was beside the point.

Point was this: Scarab was in trouble.

"You're kidding," mumbled John as he sat up, rubbing his eyes. He was clad in nothing but his pants and quite hairy, enough to pass as the wolfman should he decide that his birthday suit would be clothing enough, but a hand soon reached for the pair of discarded trousers on the floor. They were crinkled, but already the urgency was staining the air with an uncomfortable tension. They were fumbled on when the magician stumbled out with his usual grace.

If The Corinthian had gone out in his birthday suit one might think the wolfman's companion was in need of a big dose of sun, but even some solar rays couldn't tan his pale skin, permanently anyway. So The City should thank the gods he slipped into his jeans and threw a shirt on, maybe not a clean one, but a shirt nonetheless. After pulling the fabric over his waist he looked to John, seriously.

"No," he wasn't kidding. Then he tossed the other a shirt, who knew if it was his or John's anyway. "She's across The City, that's all I got, can you do something about it," the nightmare asked the magus, implying a little sleight of hand, and magic.

Buttoning his shirt, John knew that cue all too well. A familiar grin creased his face.

"Well then, first thing's first: Got anything of hers on you?"

"Does it matter what it is," asked the nightmare.

He was not at all well-versed in the ways of formal magic, not even rogue magic. That territory belonged to the blonde man getting dressed in front of him. The Corinthian could skip and traverse through dreams, make someone crave their own salvation or destruction, but conjure a marked demon? Boot a few praxis prats back to hell? Not really.

"I have one of her guns and the shit she dumped in my head," said the white-blonde with a tap to his temple, most unsarcastically because those things really were all he had of hers.

John chewed his lip for a moment, studying the nightmare's face intently and thoughtfully. He might have been inept at machines, technology and the like, but the magic addiction that stained his blood, drove his being, made him a completely different person. The hardened bastard was knowledgable, a hand offered in the black, serving as a guide through the dark and unknown.

Hm...

"We can work around that," the magus said, finishing his tie, "just need to change things up a bit and we'll be off and ready to go. Show me that lovely palma' yers. Either would do."

..... He'd gone through the effort of putting on his tie. Well the nightmare should have expected as much, this was John Constantine after all. The man's level-headed cool was the appropriate balance to The Corinthian's eagerness to get moving, to dive in blindly. That would only waste precious minutes of Scarab's time. He stared at John wondering what (or who) he could be staring at.

Eventually he offered the other his right hand, the hand that had grown a mirror blade to fight the Red Pyramid. He trusted John, enough to not even ask questions.

That worked. Made things quicker, since it seemed ol' Cori was in a haste to begin with. And Christ knew what kind of shit Scarab was in to make the nightmare act in such a fashion.

The magus took the Corinthian's palm, closing his eyes in concentration and allowing the index finger of his other hand to trace. The tip was calloused and rough, but it continued to seek out the tiny invisible intricacies whatever forces were guiding him through.

Or he was completely making up.

Either John was far more powerful than he acted or the magus knew that leading the nightmare on would open him up to sharing the vision, everything that had happened from Scarab's call to the metamorphosis to her violation and his, the helmeted creature, his manipulation of her past, and then her rise before they both shut him out of the dream realm. It might have come out full force for the Englishman, or maybe it played like a simple tune for him to hear, to pick up the source of the music, trace it back to the record player, and note the cord in the wall.

"......" The Corinthian remained silent, aware of the transfer of magic though he couldn't tell if John was drawing it from him or if he was emitting it to the other.

A simple draw. Constantine had manipulation, whether it was the supernatural or ordinary, mastered to an art form, but anything truly magical within him was almost nil. Years ago, he summed himself up sufficiently: Not a figure of power pretending to be an ordinary bloke, but a simple bloke pretending to be something greater.

The draw had leaked into Constantine's brain, eyes still closed, a trickle of visions bleeding into the blacks of his lids. He had found the link needed, and all that was left was to take that link and broadcast it, to try to find a resonance that would lead him to the source of the memory traces.

Concentrate... Concentrate...

A room.

( An alley way?)

A bed, a concrete slab covered in torn blackened cloth.

( A shadowed corner between builings?)

Lay still...doesn't hurt if you lay still

A lone woman dressed in decorated lace.
A pattern of crawling vines swirl across it, the lace becomes a dress, the dress becomes the cloth.

( A torn and bloodied vinyl suit?)

A long silver chain links her ankle to an equally delicate ring bolted into the concrete.
The links fashioned to resemble exquisite strands of barb wire.

She is covered in cuts, abrasions, some deeper lacerations.

( A bleeding bullet wound, three fingered hand?)

Silence, save her measured breathing.

( The far off sound of city nightlife.)

And then....a touch.

( The woman frowns in her sleep.)

A far away calling of her name..

( Feint, and distant...)

......John?......

Constantine almost jolted, almost broke the link, but no, he had to to keep his focus, had to keep his mind on Scarab. He could feel her almost reach out, almost talk to him. Psychic spindles of his own willpower tried to push through, and the Englishman channeled his energies into speaking with the tiny voice. He had images, clues he could possibly divine something out with, but talking to her would make an even bigger difference.

Are you there, luv? Speak to me... It's John.

The comforting accent and smoky voice still remained, even in psychic speak.

Deep brown eyes open and look around as much as possible without moving from the bed.

Is she moved, He might hear.

( The frown deepens, the hand curls into a fist.)

...John?...John!

She slowly, ever so carefully raises her head from the sheet and looks around for the source of a voice.

You have to get out of here! You have to stay away!...

A shift of cloth, and she freezes, careful not to disturb the chain.

( A stuttering sigh...a single tear...)

Please, don't try to find me!...HE will kill you! HE tried to kill Cori...stay away...stay....away.......

She lays back down on the bed, and shuts her eyes tight.

( Curls onto her side....Her hair sticks to the mask...the puddle grows.)

Then the connection was shut. Severed. Gone. He couldn't add anything else; it ceased.

"Christ."

The magus released his channel's, the Corinthian's, hand. Maybe it fell. Maybe the nightmare broke himself from the trance in time. Too many questions running through the old magician's mind, too many things. What could this "he" be? The helmet thing Cori was talking about earlier?

At the very least, they had a lead now, and all that would be needed was synchronicity.

Shut out once already, certainly the interloper's white presence would be easily detectable by the butcher this time around. That's why the nightmare kept quiet, allowed John to use his unique vision as a channel instead of visiting the damning realm himself. This way kept the magus protected as well, the Red Pyramid could not come for him without going through The Corinthian first. By now he'd closed his teetheyes, let his function become a tool for communication that he trusted in John's hands.

The second the connection was severed he inhaled sharply. What should have been a brief momemnt felt like an eternity before The Corinthian released exhaled.

"Did you get anything," he asked the other while adjusting his sunglasses. The conversation that had passed within him between the two had sounded faint at best. Regardless, the white-blonde nodded once, "let's go."

"Let's."

Armed with cigarettes, a trenchcoat and toothy-eyed companion, synchronicity had guided the pair to what would have otherwise been a normal alley, inconspicious to the eye. However, Constantine could sense an uneasiness in the air, a discomfort; this had to have been the right one, he wanted to think. The magician turned to the Corinthian, if to confirm his uncomfortable feelings as well as accuracy.

The darkness in the alley where Scarab lay was most certainly alive. Shadows danced and leapt across the walls, choking out even the streetlight beams. It seemed playful, the darkness. Not malicious, simply... Aware.

The executioner himself had melted into the darkness, leaving his solid form so that he could focus his energy into the woman's dreams, where he was roaming. The darkness in the real world was watching them both, making sure they were undisturbed. Anyone who happened into the area would certainly get a nasty surprise.

A gentle hand reaches for her.

She flinches, and the hand pauses.

Brown eyes open to slits, and see a shadowed figure...unilluminated...but not HIM.

She blinks once, confused, and the hand reaches again...this time she watches, bemused as the hand tenderly brushes a few strands of her hair from her eyes.

A sigh of relief....and she reaches out to clasp the stranger's hand.
A small measure of comfort in her prison.

Thank you...

( The woman sighs, and relaxes...safe now...safe....)

It was as if they'd walked out of the apartment and right into the alley. An interesting trick, riding synchronicity like that, completely bypassing the dreaming. He looked to John, adjusted his glasses once more as a cool gesture of confirmation, then turned to face the darkness, living darkness. A dark form, the outline of a body on the alley floor, caught his attention. He pointed it out to the magus and nodded once before approaching it. It could have been anyone, a drunk passed out on his way home, a homeless one who never quite made it back to their 'spot', it could have been Scarab, unconscious from blood loss, or it could be a most unpleasant surprise.

Constantine turned his gaze back to the alleyway that yawned before them. Should have sensed that earlier. Couldn't have been more obvious, really: They were stepping into a world of shit with a good chance of a storm. Something stung into the most reptilian part of him, a distrust of the unknown, especially this particular one, even if it was curiously watching him.

Suppose he would be going in first. Another look towards ol' Cori and then cautiously he entered. With that same caution, he approached the body, surpressing fear with a practiced control. Should it have been what he thought it was, he would have knelt, would have asked if she was okay as he glanced over her, would have told her that everything would be alright, even if he were a Constantine.

The darkness suddenly became alert. The dancing, moving shadows stopped, and froze, as if watching, glaring at the two unwanted newcomers. They weren't supposed to be here. Especially not the tooth-eyed man. The horrible conciousness remembered him. It remembered how he'd tried to hurt him. He MUST be here to hurt her.

Suddenly, the shadows were sucked away, and sped into a dark corner, behind a dumpster. All was quiet.

Until from behind the dumpster, the apalling screech of steel on asphalt, and the heavy thudding of boots.

The shadow had stayed...she was glad, because being alone, just waiting for HIM, was horrible in itself.

For a time it seemed as though they spoke, but not with words.
Instead a conversation of images, snippets of thought, sharing secrets in a silent world.

Strangely the shadow was quiet. It shared little, but rather sat and listened, sometimes playing with the ends of her hair as it lay scross the cloth..
...Like an especially playful kitten.

It seemed particularly pleased with the tales of her past, and made small encouraging gestures when she remembered her more prestigious missions...it especially liked the tales of leaving a message on a yamamoto gumi's bloated belly in the blood of his mistress....who had until recently been sleeping beside him.

How long had passed?
Seconds?
Lifetimes?

She couldn't tell...but she was feeling better, more at ease...

When the shadow seemed to take on a stillness. A watchful unease.

She frowned, and immeadiately wondered if her shadow friend could hear HIM.

The rattled vibration of a growl passed over her, and made her shiver, but before she could ask, the shadow reached for her agian, and made a curious gesture:

It passed a hand over her face, lightly brushing her eyes, then her lips....

...and was gone.

Without a word of warning he reached out to grasp the magician's wrist, to still his movements. Not any closer to her, especially if the screeching thing, the big knife, stood between them and Scarab. He felt an itch in his palms, the sensation of a thousand unseen little teeth nipping and gnawing, aching to unleash their nightmares on her captor. Not here, not in the waking world lest he create a breach himself, and land both red and white horrors in a proper ring. He would not draw John or Scarab into such a mess, but neither was he fully capable of guaranteeing that the Red Pyramid couldn't either.

"Keep your eyes off me," he posed his warning as a casual question to the Englishman, even giving the man a faint cocky (well-meaning) smirk, before letting go of him to remove his sunglasses.

John gave the silver-haired nightmare a glance, but acknowledged him, unsure of what was to come, lest he wanted to give poor Scarab nightmares (Nightmares...). This felt more like his shit anyway, it did. The Englishman pulled back, allowing his companion to do what he had intended to do, keeping his own eyes off those smaller pairs of teeth. The shadows, he realized, had... lightened? Appeared more ... normal? What was normality here in the City and how could he be reliable judge of it?

Thud... Thud... Thud...

That wasn't normal. His gut was sure of it. Couldn't be a dog. Dogs had an ordinary shuffle.

"Cori, what the hell is going on?"

The helmet slowly rose above the dumpster as the monster stood to his full seven feet, hauling the knife with him as he stepped into the middle of the alley. He made his way forward, slowly, but made no effort to raise the weapon. Rather, he came to a stop, Scarab between he and the two men, and raised his free hand, the recognized gesture of "halt", the pasty white skin seemingly glowing in the moonlight. The darkness had not come with him. That was still with Scarab, still watching over her, still wandering about her mind. Without the darkness, he would not be able to communicate with the men, and somewhere in that horrific mind was the hope that they'd simply turn and leave. It was far too much for them to understand.

Wait!...don't leave....

She bit her lip.

( Whimpered softly...)

Had her shadow friend heard HIM? Was HE coming back for her?
The creeping unease was coming back, and very, very, carefully she raised herself until she was seated in the bed....

...and heard the chain 'click'.

As the fear that something had heard started to rise agian, she saw...or rather felt...the blackness of the cloth swirl and become a living, moving shadow.

Strangely she wasn't afraid...she was curious...and tentatively she reached one hand into the swirling mass of shadow.

...it was oddly warm...

With the touch of shadow came an instant feeling of reassurance, of comfort.

She smiled.

( A smile...)

...closed her eyes...and let the shadow surround her in a liquid-yet-not embrace.

...there you are...

"That," he upnodded to whom he referred to as the 'big helmet head shit' earlier for John, "he's keeping her asleep."

His posture tensed as the butcher made its way to them, its darkness still hovering around Scarab's prone body. He waited for it to wield its large executioner's knife, to make judgment and attack with its razorwire.... But it didn't? The Corinthian stared hard at the creature, its single white hand raised in a gesture. Stop, desist, refrain from crossing this line and maybe I won't kill you. Right.

"Like hell," the nightmare hissed and took a step forward.

Big and ugly. And imitating The Supremes perfectly.

Unlike the Corinthian, Constantine took a step back, to watch and observe (and do a good backstab when the time called for it). He was shite at fighting, and useless at the moment.

Stupid, stupid. Godless HEATHENS

With that thought, the creature dragged the blade around his and the sleeping woman's body in a wide arc, the nine-foot blade, coupled with his four and a half foot arm's length, made for quite an intimidating range. There was no way to make them see, let them know that their stupidity now could only bring death. That to flee would assure them all of another day to live.

Duty... Binding man forever against himself

Hopefully the nightmare and the magus were on the same page here. If he could keep the red horror busy just long enough, long enough for Scarab's body to mysteriously go 'missing' then they could both hightail it out of there. He was not adverse to running from a fight, conquering the Red Pyramid wasn't at the top of his list of priorities right now either. They needed to get Scarab out of there, before she died of blood loss, hypothermia, or lost herself to her dreams, her nightmares.

The Corinthian leapt into that 9ft range, deftly avoiding the blade when he rolled and landed in a crouch. Certainly the Red Pyramid had size and strength, but how fast was he with close combat and a smaller opponent? As small as Scarab. If the white horror's illusion held strong, to the butcher he might appear as a slight Japanese woman, free of her shadow bonds.

*Come claim me.*

Bluntly stated: They were.

Constantine noted Scarab now, and from the looks of things, making another attempt to free her sounded as good a course of action as any. He ran to her (half expecting a sudden blade in his arse), taking her delicately by the arm and wrapping it around the back of his neck, the rest of her scooped up in a bride's carry. She did not weigh much.

Blue eyes flicked both towards the helmeted thing and the Corinthian. No time to dwell about the two contrasts, two terrors; time to get the shit out of there.

"Come on, luv," he muttered to the girl, poor, poor Scarab, bloodied and cold, "we're going home, er, somewhere more homely than this hole."

He was, for a moment, confused. Two identical figures. The creature stood still, the mind whirring benath the helmet.

Until one of the heathens rushed in, grabbing the Student. Easy enough. The weapon swung once more, this time the tip of the steel blade hovered little more than a foot above the asphalt, leaving only enough room to pass over his sleeping student, while anything higher would be in the weapon's impact zone. He needed his student here... He needed his darkness here...

Only one dread guard would have this student. A crimson dread guard.

The man masquerading as the noh operative slid to the left and placed his palm flat on the ground. He drew upon the nightmare realm, creating a temporary breach just for this moment, just for his body. When the blade made its arc there would have sounded a loud crack upon impact with his elbow, indestructible metal to indestructible mirror, cutting its circular path short for John and Scarab. The pain caused the nightmare to drop his disguise as blood began trickling down his forearm.

-I'll keep this one busy.-

The Corinthian's teetheye rasped to John. He hoped the other would be using the synchronicity highway to get out of dodge. Eventually he'd follow, taking the long way back.

Log; Ongoing

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