tampered | Log; Complete

When; May 4 (night)
Rating; PG13 (language, mild violence)
Characters; John Constantine

cigamyadyreve
Summary; The illusionist joins the search for Constantine, however her luck is anything but good.
Log;

After sundown it was the illusionist's turn to search for the missing magus. The last she'd heard from him was prior to Sunday, and days had passed along with several key events to which she wasn't privy. Corinthian hadn't seen him, 'Cori' hadn't even been conscious till the midnight of the end of the worlds, and that hadn't happened. It should have heralded John's return; it didn't.

Zatanna huffed softly, shoulders rising and falling at great depth. She had scoured the Square, checked the various City landmarks, and had even disappeared into the Underground for information. It was from this dark underbelly that the brunette emerged, with nothing to show for it. Her blue eyes gazed up and down the shadowy intersections, hoping the very breeze might turn up an elusive trench coat.

----

There was no trenchcoat, but a shuffling in one of the alleyways. A bang. A clatter. Silence. Minutes later, there was a plastic crinkle as something tore into a trash bag to feast indiscriminately on its most near-inedible contents.

----

"Cigam evig em thgil," she said to herself with a snap of gloved fingers. A soft yellow orb illuminated in her palm, real magic. A woman could never be too careful in these quarters either.

Like Constantine she too had a trademark coat, its tuxedo tails flapping gently with each click of her heels. Zatanna neared the source of the noise; perhaps to scare it away if it were foe, but since John Constantine was involved she just as soon considered it one of his enemies spying on her.

----

Click. Click. The ghostly shape over the spilt trashcan perked up, ears erect, alert and frozen. Perhaps it was familiar, a creature certainly dog-like but larger than any dog. A matted old wolf just a smidge heavier than it should optimally be. Its eyes seemed to burn and glow as the magical light reflected off their backs.

----

An animal, Zee thought to herself when she caught the shine of its eyes. Closer inspection however yielded a more alarming result; those eyes were light in shade and blue in color. She considered the possibility, she did not want to let him out of her grasp... if it was him.

"John..." Zatanna asked curiously, her expression a furrow. She could be talking to a stray mutt for all she knew, but if it was the Englishman, if it had that spark...

----

Close enough and the animal, "John," tensed, those long legs with those bunched up muscles ready to spring away. An ear swiveled back and forward again with the other. Cornered. Watch. No other response. The eyes were dull and lost, misery bobbing in the consuming feral blue.

----

"John is that you, it's me Zee," she greeted the large animal with her friendliest smile. Zatanna even crouched to put herself at near eye level with the creature, without top hat tonight. Perhaps she looked like a dull broad trying to communicate with a canine, but she had to be sure.

"We're all looking for you," she nodded to the lost wolf, "Corinthian included."

----

The creature did not take its gaze off her, backing slowly away as those big nostrils quivered and swirled in her scent. There was no lick of understanding in those eyes, no little sign. No typical Constantine mumble of some sort in that watered down Liverpuddian accent. Nothing. Its upper lip only briefly quivered.

----

That's when she saw it, not the slight hint of metal in his ear or even the more intimate strike through his well-prized jewels. In this lighting, face-to-face, she recognized the heart marking on his nose, distinctly Constantine in its uncharacteristic shape. Her mistake was approaching him while looking straight into those blue eyes.

"John... Nhoj, emoc htiw Eez," the illusionist reached out to him.

----

"John" waddled back again with that near cumbersome shuffle, quickly this time, those ears drawing back in a defensive position. The tiny stud was a brief flicker from beneath the thick fur of his ear. That large tail curled between his legs, over the site of his other addition acquired in his human life.

----

The backwards speech that was the backbone of her ability hadn't worked. Zatanna quirked a dark brow, it had always applied an effect to Constantine, in both human and lupine forms. Why not now? She stood up again, edging closer. The orb of light stretched her shadow.

"Nhoj, emoc emoh htiw Eez ot Iroc." She feared the worst, not that she had the wrong dog but that this one was far too gone. "Yella esolc," ordered the illusionist. She would not let him run without going through her.

----

Zatanna growing taller only drove the ex-Constantine to the back of the alley against the sealed portion. Confused, gone, he rose up to his hind legs, his large paws against the hard brick. Unyielding, Constantine fell back to all fours, hackles rising as he turned to face her, eyes wide with a trapped animal fear. There should have been comfort in this familiarity, but that was in his human life. She was a tall, dangerous creature now, interested in him no less. A danger. Hazard.

----

A tall dangerous creature in fishnets and high heels. Zee had in fact hoped the costume would trigger some nostalgia in John, to make him want to come around if she found him first.

"Are you hungry," she asked him even if he clearly was not responsive to her words. Zatanna glanced to the garbage briefly. She imagined those years she had only heard of, when Constantine had lost the Irish light of his life. "Taem tuo," the illusionist enchanted the trash, drawing out what rank bits remained for his eating pleasure.

----

A simple, most pleasing pleasure it was. Constantine's new life would be dominated by his next meal. Not too much different than money matters, really, should John have been lucid enough to remember that concept. He wasn't now, his motion-sensitive eyes detecting the aromatic parts of his plunder sliding out into a pile: bones, tendons, chunks of puree from cans, moldy unidentifiable bits with some meat content inside, expired cold cuts... Still, John was frozen against the wall, not ready to trust the domineering female just yet.

----

Domineering female. She would have laughed at that in good nature were it not for their circumstances. At the moment Zatanna had no idea who else she could be to make him come around... Besides the nightmare himself, and she didn't want to let the magus out of her sight just to find him.

Zee reminded herself, this was far less than swapping personalities, wiping minds, and rearranging brains. This was also for John. "Eciov egnahc to S'iroc," hexed the illusionist. "Eat up, babe," said the much deeper masculine tone, "nobody's going to hurt you." She edged closer, pushing the pile towards him.

He couldn't touch the meat without getting within arm's length of her.

----

A tiny ping of familiarity, drawing a small hazy whine from the back of John's throat. If only he could remember why, how. Those concepts and things were beyond him now, except that something felt missing. He perked up again, hackles falling, ears erect. He took a slow, cautious step forward out of his heartache and hunger but that was as far as he was going to go.

----

"That's it... just a little more..." Zee urged in the familiar voice that didn't belong to her. Pushing her disgust for the rancid food aside, she pinched the bones of a drumstick in her hand and held it out to John. So damn close, all it could take was one single touch. She was beginning to sweat.

----

Those nostrils gave the offering another scrutinizing quiver before snapping it up in his teeth to pull it away and squeeze himself into the farthest corner of the alley to enjoy what he could as quickly as possible. The bone gave very quickly between those sharp teeth, crunching away into sharp splinters and down the ex-magus' gullet within a minute.

----

"Good boy," she smiled, still speaking in the nightmare's voice. Perfect, the corner. Zatanna had worked with stage animals before, and John Constantine was his own kind of animal, but she had not attempted to tame a wild lupine magus. That was the risk.

Click click. The heels moved forward, to trap the manbeast in his little corner of brick and shadow. The glow in her hand began to dissipate as Zee's mind concentrated on a different kind of magic: of basic will and submission. "Let me touch you," said the man's voice as very feminine fingers reached down to stroke his fur. She was still standing, an 'imposing' force of high heels, fishnets, tail coat, and bowtie.

----

Constantine was hesitantly, fearfully crunching on bone fragments when that figure still persisted, daring to even draw her hand towards him. Ears pinned back flat against his skull, the hackles up, he snarled at her, this mixed up voice swapping thing, in a toothy "grin."

----

She wanted to yell at him, to tell him he should know better than to take that tone with her. Instead Zee's hand froze mere inches from his plush yellow-white fur. That snarl was something else. The nightmare's voice gave way to her enchanting tone again.

"Nhoj, eb mlac," said the illusionist, "tel em pleh uoy." Her fingers itched to close the gap.

----

No calm was evoked from the spell. A pink tongue darted over his moist nose, the teeth still bared and exposed for her to see. He was squeezing himself against the wall, trying to shrink away.

----

Zatanna was losing patience. The longer they stood there, the higher the tension rose, the likelihood of him getting away. She needed to do something before she lost him. "Nhoj pots!"

She whipped her hand out to grab hold of his fur, anywhere. His back, his ears, his throat.

----

A flash of ivory. Blood.

Constantine reacted with the swift ferocity of the beast he had become. He tore into that arm as much as those long, killing fangs would allow. It was all out of fear, sudden moment akin to an attack. The jaws squeezed, a growing pressure approaching a force strong enough to crack the thick femur of a moose.

----

"Christ!!" Zatanna cried out when the wolf, her friend, sank his fangs through the fabric of her coat and straight into her arm. "Nhoj esaeler!! Fucking esaeler em!!"

She balled her other hand into a fist and struck at the man's black nose. Those heels wobbled, threatening to slip.

----

That thick neck allowed for a powerful thrash, not until the woman had socked him, John releasing to stumble back, his world wobbling with the throb in his nose.

----

She grunted from the fall, her rear slamming into the hard ground as a heel came loose from her foot. Zatanna's arm was a mess. Bits of the black fabric had been shred while pieces remained in the wound just below her elbow. Her blue eyes teared from the pain. She wasn't going to give up yet.

"Nhoj Enitnatsnoc nrut kcab otni a nam!"

----

The white furry body did not twist and contort back into the Englishman she had been all too familiar with for all these years. Those eyes flickered in the low light, studying her for an all too brief moment before he leapt past her.

----

"The hell..." Zatanna growled, from her pain and failure. The spells weren't working, but she still had her magic. What had happened to John? However, if she couldn't affect him directly there were always other methods. She placed her good hand on the floor.

"Dnuorg emoceb eci!" Anything to slow him down.

----

Constantine had landed on the ice, his mind lupine but his grace not quite. Expecting pavement, he fell; forelegs splayed clumsily out and back legs trailing behind. He scrambled to get back up to all fours again, claws scratching at this sudden, puzzling surface.

----

Unfortunately Zatanna also wasn't a paragon of majesty on the ice. Her fishnets scraped against the cold surface, feet slipping as bad as John's paws. She had only one arm to support herself, the other too wounded for use. The illusionist clawed her nails out to grab the magus' tail, a hind leg if she was lucky (even if it risked a second bite).

----

The yanked tail and the momentum of his body was enough for Constantine to briefly yelp before twisting back to indeed demolish the lady magician's other arm. He did not care. He was indifferent. He wanted to run away.

----

"Shit!"

This time she immediately released his tail, knowing her spells would not force his jaws from her flesh. Zatanna reeled back just in time to have those sharp fangs graze her sleeve, putting in new tears and scratches to her skin, but nothing as bloody as her arm. It was already on the ice in faint red smears.

----

Released, Constantine fought against the ice to get away, to gain momentum back to solid tractable surface. Black claws furiously scratching as his limbs wheeled, he made it to the end of the alleyway, pausing to gaze back at Zatanna.

A moment of lucidity.

----

The mouth of the alley was where the ice thinned away to pavement once more. She didn't chase after him, arm too injured to push herself up. Her other foot was still missing its shoe. John was not responding to her spells. Zatanna didn't even know how much of John was still there.

Blue eyes looked back, frustrated and pained.

----

And he did not want to fathom what he had just done. It hurt him. Too much. His, his, own action was a weak puff of his floppy jowls, the fierce expression briefly giving into something very mournful and human. He howled.

They were like fragments, things he should be feeling but did not quite feel the full impact of it. Words he did not understand anymore. There was a time he was calloused like this, long ago, realization by a dominatrix's whip and a trail to the embodiment of the world's suffering.

He let the thoughts of food and survival and preserving himself suck him back deep into its toothy maw before he could collect it all and make sense of it. He did not want to. He knew he did not want to. The wolf's indifference was a blessed comfort. .

He ran.

----

The puff of his muzzle and that very human look in his eyes gave her a slice of hope.

".... Damnit," she hissed when John bolted. Zee shut her eyes. "Damnit," she growled and slammed her fist into the ice several times, "damn you John." Zatanna Zatara had failed, failed to catch the man who once helped her in a jam, and vice versa. Failed her friend... Just tonight.

She wouldn't give up, but first she needed to take care of her arm, then share her findings with an elemental and a nightmare.