![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
matrixrefugeeAs promised, the final chapter of this fic...
+J.M.J.+
The Smoke of Satan in Your House
by "Matrix Refugee"
Rating: PG-13 (Language)
Warnings: Nothing aside from Constantine's mouthiness...
Chapters: Prologue: The Scent of Evil,
Chapter One: Contractors and Commissions
Chapter Two: Under the Floorboards,
Chapter Three: Creeping Around the Basement
Chapter Four: Nipping out for Supplies
Chapter Five: Eviction Notice
Chapter Six: Cleaning House
Disclaimer: I don't own "Constantine", its characters, concepts and other indicia, which are the property of Francis Lawrence, Village Roadshow, Warner Brothers, Dc Comics/Vertigo, et al. And I certainly don't own any of the demons.
Epilogue: Locking Up
WBZ-TV Channel 4 News at Noon -- March 2, 2005
"...We begin tonight with a story which Catholics in the Houlton area are talking about.
"In a bizarre turn of events, Bishop Benjamin Mallegant has personally over-turned a decision to close Saint Mary Magdalen Church. Jim Langair is live at the church with the details. Jim?"
The footage cut to a shot of the field reporter standing in front of Sankt Maria's. "Thank you, Christine. Saint Mary Magdalen's Church has been the center of contraversy between parishoners and members of the dioceasan hierarchy, but last night, that nearly turned into a physical confrontation during an otherwise peaceful sit-in.
The feed cut to a series of shots of the interior of the church, mostly focussing on the glass and stone littering the sanctuary floor. "Debris from a window broken in by vandals covers the floor of this historic parish. It's unclear who the vandals were and why they did this, but it added to the confusion last night, when Bishop Mallegant showed up, unexpectedly, to personally remove the altar stone and the church's ritual vessals.
"Parish members tried to reason with the bishop, but were ordered to leave the building. That was when a man approached the bishop and hit him in the jaw with a piece of stone before proceeding to perform a crude exorcism over the injured bishop, whom some parish members claimed was demonically possessed."
A mug shot of Constantine -- looking thoroughly pissed, but glumly resigned to the fact -- came up on the screen. "That man, forty-four year old John Constantine of Los Angeles, California, a self-styled exorcist turned demon-hunting detective, is now in police custody, facing assault charges..."
*****************************************************
It wasn't the first time Constantine had seen the inside of a jail cell after someone had interfered during a deliverance; fortunately, his only cellmates were three drunken teenagers sleeping off their booze. Their parents came for them in the morning, leaving him thankfully alone. Crowley was trying to get legal aid for him, but according to the chatty guard, hadn't come up with anyone willing to cover the case.
A couple hours later, the guard came back and unlocked the door. "Hey there, Hellboy: you got lucky. The pearly gates got opened for you." Constantine stifled a derisive laugh, masking it with a coughing fit as he got up from the bunk and followed the guard out, down a hallway and into the vestibule. Crowley was there, with no less than Mallegant himself, both of them clearly waiting for him. A large piece of gauze bandaging covered the corner of the bishop's jaw, but he seemed otherwise unmarked
"Good news, John," Crowley said. "But I'd better let His Eminence tell you."
"I've had the charges dropped: You did the right thing when your peformed that exorcism, even if you had to hit me to keep me down," Mallegant said.
Constantine shrugged. "It had to be done, or the demons in you would have killed us both."
"Besides that, you freed me from those unwelcome spiritual visitors. I knew they were there, I was merely blinding myself to the fact, telling myself it was just a stronger version of the despairing voices that haunted me before I went on anti-depressants some years back."
"By any chance, you changed meds since the voices got worse?" Constantine asked. Wouldn't be the first time, in his experience, that a case of possession had manifested as medication-resistant depression....
Mallegant nodded. "I thought it was a problem with the drugs or that I was merely over-stressed from handling the deficit, or maybe I merely hoped that's all it was. Thank God they're gone now."
"Next time -- should it happen again -- I hope you're a little more discerning. I don't want to have to haul my ass all the way out here again," Constantine said.
"You won't have to trouble yourself with that, and I'm afraid the DA's office would only let me drop the charges if I filed a restraining order on you. Aside from that legal technicality, Crowley told me everything he knew about this case, including Mr. Mefis's real identity. I was a fool to shut my eyes to what was going on, or maybe I was blinded by the demonic aura, which meant I was too close to see what would have happened if that church came down."
"I take it that means the folks at Sankt Maria's get to keep their church?" Constantine said.
"I've already reversed the decree," Mallegant said. "Of course, it's going to need some repairs, thanks to what went down last night, but we'll figure something out."
"Next time you file with an accountant, make sure the guy's legit, and not some demonic con artist," Constantine said.
"That's for me to handle," Crowley said.
"Better you than me," Constantine replied, feeling in his pocket for his smokes
*****************************************************
That afternoon, Goerg Shuller and several men of Sankt Maria's set to work cleaning up the shattered glass and broken stone, where something had smashed in the rose window; Georg called in a contractor he knew, to handle boarding up the window until they could find someone to repair it. Luke Thompson claimed he'd seen a flying demon smash the window the night before, and it seemed more likely that some hoodlums had got up on the roof of the telephone company building behind the church and thrown things at the window from there.
But they didn't find any bricks or anything like that among the debris that littered the sanctuary. And a large scorchmark, shaped like something tall with wings, covered the pattern in the tiles on the floor at the foot of the sanctuary.
He and his helpers were almost finished, when Georg looked up to see a tall, dark, lanky youngish man pass through the vestibule, that same man he'd seen talking with Natalie O'Halloran, the day before.
"Hey, hey there!" Georg called. The younger man paused, turning to him, a suitcase in one hand, a roll of blankets under the other arm.
Georg approached the dark man. "You're that demon hunter they talked about on the news this morning, the fellow who turned up here last night. You're John Constantine."
"Yeah, that's me." He darted a glance at the propped-open street doors, as if he were in a hurry to leave.
"Is it true what Luke Thompson said, that you pulled a demon out of Bishop Mallegant last night?" Georg asked.
"Not exactly: I pulled seven demons out of him," Constantine replied.
"So that explains why he was acting so strangely."
"He made himself a sitting duck, choosin' the kind of help he did."
"Like that sleazy-looking financial advisor?"
"Another demon, a fallen arch-angel to be exact."
"That sounds nasty."
"The hell it is."
"So you exorcised that demon, too?"
"Shot it straight back to hell."
"And you came all the way out here from Los Angeles to take care of this?"
"Wasn't like I did it out of the kindness of my heart: like I've been tellin' people, Martin Crowley called me out here to cover for him since he was too damn close to the shit to clean it out."
"Well, it helped save this parish: we're beyond grateful for that. We're holding a thanksgiving Mass tomorrow morning, once we clean up here. You're welcome to join us."
"I'll take a raincheck, chief: I got a plane to catch, and I ain't the kind of guy you folks would really care to associate with."
With that, Constantine went out into the early spring sunlight, a dark shadow against the melting snow.
*****************************************************
As usual, on passing through airport security, Constantine set off the metal detector. The guard made him step aside: routine stuff. Constantine removed a handful of change from one pocket, his keyring from another, his lighter from his breast pocket and put them in the small plastic bin the guard held out to him before stepping through the detector again.
On the other side, a female guard took the lighter from the bin before relinquishing the rest of the metal objects. "I'm afraid I have to confiscate this, sir," she said.
"It's a family heirloom, it's got a lot of sentimental value," Constantine argued. "Belonged to my English great-uncle."
"I'm sorry, but that's the rule," she said.
"Since when? I've brought that lighter with me dozens of times."
"It's a new ruling that just went into effect two days ago."
"Typical..." Constantine grumbled. He had a feeling someone was using this get a kick at him...
The End....
*****************************************************
Literary Easter Eggs:
Constantine's age -- I'm riffing like... hell, since Keanu Reeves is forty-one and the John Constantine of the graphic novels is pushing fifty, so I thought I'd hit a comprimise.
"Hellboy" -- A dig at someone I know who got the "Hellboy" series by Dark Horse comics confused with "Hellblazer".
*****************************************************
Afterword: I'm at work on a sequel, so in the manner of movie trailers...
Coming soon...
(Music: "Vater Unser" -- E Nomine [remixed])
Warner Bros' shield. Village Roadshow logo. DC/Vertigo Comics logo -- one after the other, all in a hellishly burnt-out sepia.
Fade in: Constantine and Chas standing in St. Peter's Square. A flock of harpy-like demons swoop down at them.
An aged, deceased bishop lying in state, clad in deep red vestments. The foreground goes out of focus and the background becomes clearer: Constantine is standing in the shadow of a thick, Romanesque column, gazing toward the bier in the foreground.
Constantine (V.O.): "The keys of the kingdom are passing to the next successor to the Fisherman..."
A procession of scarlet and white-clad cardinals filing into St. Peter's Basillica. The light is dim and they look shaken.
A completely crazy-looking woman dragging her weedy-looking seminarian son down a Baroque corridor.
A severe-looking German cardinal raising his hand, either in benediction or rebuke.
A shot of a solar eclipse over St. Peter's Basillica.
Constantine (V.O.): "Trouble is, the Ol' Scratch has been trying to get his hands on those keys for 2,000 years."
Chas and Constantine, accompanied by a cheerful-looking (and slightly chubby) monk, creeping along a darkened passageway, carrying thick candles as torches.
A hand (Constantine's?) pulling a sheet of black canvas over the scratched-up face of a youngish man in the tattered, bloodied remains of a cassock.
Chas looking freaked-out by something out of camera range.
Constantine (V.O.): "What's to stop hell from makin' a pass at heaven's gate during the changing of the guard?"
Two Monica Bellucci-clones walking side by side into the shadows of a dark street, approaching us. As they step into a pool of shadows, their eyes start to glow red.
Male voice with a German accent (V.O.): "You have that rare gift, Constantine: Use it to protect your sisters and brothers."
Constantine sitting with his head in his hands, grinding his teeth, eyes screwed shut.
A winged male demon, clad in a long black coat, perched on the capital of a column, laughing maniacally.
Constantine (V.O.): "A gift? More like a curse straight from hell."
Constantine laying on his back, shirt torn open. One of the demonic brunettes slithers over him, her mouth seeking his.
Lightning strikes. Blackout.
Title cards on screen:
Heaven's Door is Unguarded
And The Faith of Millions is Under Fire
The Battle Begins
AUGUST 22, 2005
Constantine: Changing of the Guard
A fanfic by "Matrix Refugee"
+J.M.J.+
The Smoke of Satan in Your House
by "Matrix Refugee"
Rating: PG-13 (Language)
Warnings: Nothing aside from Constantine's mouthiness...
Chapters: Prologue: The Scent of Evil,
Chapter One: Contractors and Commissions
Chapter Two: Under the Floorboards,
Chapter Three: Creeping Around the Basement
Chapter Four: Nipping out for Supplies
Chapter Five: Eviction Notice
Chapter Six: Cleaning House
Disclaimer: I don't own "Constantine", its characters, concepts and other indicia, which are the property of Francis Lawrence, Village Roadshow, Warner Brothers, Dc Comics/Vertigo, et al. And I certainly don't own any of the demons.
WBZ-TV Channel 4 News at Noon -- March 2, 2005
"...We begin tonight with a story which Catholics in the Houlton area are talking about.
"In a bizarre turn of events, Bishop Benjamin Mallegant has personally over-turned a decision to close Saint Mary Magdalen Church. Jim Langair is live at the church with the details. Jim?"
The footage cut to a shot of the field reporter standing in front of Sankt Maria's. "Thank you, Christine. Saint Mary Magdalen's Church has been the center of contraversy between parishoners and members of the dioceasan hierarchy, but last night, that nearly turned into a physical confrontation during an otherwise peaceful sit-in.
The feed cut to a series of shots of the interior of the church, mostly focussing on the glass and stone littering the sanctuary floor. "Debris from a window broken in by vandals covers the floor of this historic parish. It's unclear who the vandals were and why they did this, but it added to the confusion last night, when Bishop Mallegant showed up, unexpectedly, to personally remove the altar stone and the church's ritual vessals.
"Parish members tried to reason with the bishop, but were ordered to leave the building. That was when a man approached the bishop and hit him in the jaw with a piece of stone before proceeding to perform a crude exorcism over the injured bishop, whom some parish members claimed was demonically possessed."
A mug shot of Constantine -- looking thoroughly pissed, but glumly resigned to the fact -- came up on the screen. "That man, forty-four year old John Constantine of Los Angeles, California, a self-styled exorcist turned demon-hunting detective, is now in police custody, facing assault charges..."
*****************************************************
It wasn't the first time Constantine had seen the inside of a jail cell after someone had interfered during a deliverance; fortunately, his only cellmates were three drunken teenagers sleeping off their booze. Their parents came for them in the morning, leaving him thankfully alone. Crowley was trying to get legal aid for him, but according to the chatty guard, hadn't come up with anyone willing to cover the case.
A couple hours later, the guard came back and unlocked the door. "Hey there, Hellboy: you got lucky. The pearly gates got opened for you." Constantine stifled a derisive laugh, masking it with a coughing fit as he got up from the bunk and followed the guard out, down a hallway and into the vestibule. Crowley was there, with no less than Mallegant himself, both of them clearly waiting for him. A large piece of gauze bandaging covered the corner of the bishop's jaw, but he seemed otherwise unmarked
"Good news, John," Crowley said. "But I'd better let His Eminence tell you."
"I've had the charges dropped: You did the right thing when your peformed that exorcism, even if you had to hit me to keep me down," Mallegant said.
Constantine shrugged. "It had to be done, or the demons in you would have killed us both."
"Besides that, you freed me from those unwelcome spiritual visitors. I knew they were there, I was merely blinding myself to the fact, telling myself it was just a stronger version of the despairing voices that haunted me before I went on anti-depressants some years back."
"By any chance, you changed meds since the voices got worse?" Constantine asked. Wouldn't be the first time, in his experience, that a case of possession had manifested as medication-resistant depression....
Mallegant nodded. "I thought it was a problem with the drugs or that I was merely over-stressed from handling the deficit, or maybe I merely hoped that's all it was. Thank God they're gone now."
"Next time -- should it happen again -- I hope you're a little more discerning. I don't want to have to haul my ass all the way out here again," Constantine said.
"You won't have to trouble yourself with that, and I'm afraid the DA's office would only let me drop the charges if I filed a restraining order on you. Aside from that legal technicality, Crowley told me everything he knew about this case, including Mr. Mefis's real identity. I was a fool to shut my eyes to what was going on, or maybe I was blinded by the demonic aura, which meant I was too close to see what would have happened if that church came down."
"I take it that means the folks at Sankt Maria's get to keep their church?" Constantine said.
"I've already reversed the decree," Mallegant said. "Of course, it's going to need some repairs, thanks to what went down last night, but we'll figure something out."
"Next time you file with an accountant, make sure the guy's legit, and not some demonic con artist," Constantine said.
"That's for me to handle," Crowley said.
"Better you than me," Constantine replied, feeling in his pocket for his smokes
*****************************************************
That afternoon, Goerg Shuller and several men of Sankt Maria's set to work cleaning up the shattered glass and broken stone, where something had smashed in the rose window; Georg called in a contractor he knew, to handle boarding up the window until they could find someone to repair it. Luke Thompson claimed he'd seen a flying demon smash the window the night before, and it seemed more likely that some hoodlums had got up on the roof of the telephone company building behind the church and thrown things at the window from there.
But they didn't find any bricks or anything like that among the debris that littered the sanctuary. And a large scorchmark, shaped like something tall with wings, covered the pattern in the tiles on the floor at the foot of the sanctuary.
He and his helpers were almost finished, when Georg looked up to see a tall, dark, lanky youngish man pass through the vestibule, that same man he'd seen talking with Natalie O'Halloran, the day before.
"Hey, hey there!" Georg called. The younger man paused, turning to him, a suitcase in one hand, a roll of blankets under the other arm.
Georg approached the dark man. "You're that demon hunter they talked about on the news this morning, the fellow who turned up here last night. You're John Constantine."
"Yeah, that's me." He darted a glance at the propped-open street doors, as if he were in a hurry to leave.
"Is it true what Luke Thompson said, that you pulled a demon out of Bishop Mallegant last night?" Georg asked.
"Not exactly: I pulled seven demons out of him," Constantine replied.
"So that explains why he was acting so strangely."
"He made himself a sitting duck, choosin' the kind of help he did."
"Like that sleazy-looking financial advisor?"
"Another demon, a fallen arch-angel to be exact."
"That sounds nasty."
"The hell it is."
"So you exorcised that demon, too?"
"Shot it straight back to hell."
"And you came all the way out here from Los Angeles to take care of this?"
"Wasn't like I did it out of the kindness of my heart: like I've been tellin' people, Martin Crowley called me out here to cover for him since he was too damn close to the shit to clean it out."
"Well, it helped save this parish: we're beyond grateful for that. We're holding a thanksgiving Mass tomorrow morning, once we clean up here. You're welcome to join us."
"I'll take a raincheck, chief: I got a plane to catch, and I ain't the kind of guy you folks would really care to associate with."
With that, Constantine went out into the early spring sunlight, a dark shadow against the melting snow.
*****************************************************
As usual, on passing through airport security, Constantine set off the metal detector. The guard made him step aside: routine stuff. Constantine removed a handful of change from one pocket, his keyring from another, his lighter from his breast pocket and put them in the small plastic bin the guard held out to him before stepping through the detector again.
On the other side, a female guard took the lighter from the bin before relinquishing the rest of the metal objects. "I'm afraid I have to confiscate this, sir," she said.
"It's a family heirloom, it's got a lot of sentimental value," Constantine argued. "Belonged to my English great-uncle."
"I'm sorry, but that's the rule," she said.
"Since when? I've brought that lighter with me dozens of times."
"It's a new ruling that just went into effect two days ago."
"Typical..." Constantine grumbled. He had a feeling someone was using this get a kick at him...
The End....
*****************************************************
Literary Easter Eggs:
Constantine's age -- I'm riffing like... hell, since Keanu Reeves is forty-one and the John Constantine of the graphic novels is pushing fifty, so I thought I'd hit a comprimise.
"Hellboy" -- A dig at someone I know who got the "Hellboy" series by Dark Horse comics confused with "Hellblazer".
*****************************************************
Afterword: I'm at work on a sequel, so in the manner of movie trailers...
Coming soon...
(Music: "Vater Unser" -- E Nomine [remixed])
Warner Bros' shield. Village Roadshow logo. DC/Vertigo Comics logo -- one after the other, all in a hellishly burnt-out sepia.
Fade in: Constantine and Chas standing in St. Peter's Square. A flock of harpy-like demons swoop down at them.
An aged, deceased bishop lying in state, clad in deep red vestments. The foreground goes out of focus and the background becomes clearer: Constantine is standing in the shadow of a thick, Romanesque column, gazing toward the bier in the foreground.
Constantine (V.O.): "The keys of the kingdom are passing to the next successor to the Fisherman..."
A procession of scarlet and white-clad cardinals filing into St. Peter's Basillica. The light is dim and they look shaken.
A completely crazy-looking woman dragging her weedy-looking seminarian son down a Baroque corridor.
A severe-looking German cardinal raising his hand, either in benediction or rebuke.
A shot of a solar eclipse over St. Peter's Basillica.
Constantine (V.O.): "Trouble is, the Ol' Scratch has been trying to get his hands on those keys for 2,000 years."
Chas and Constantine, accompanied by a cheerful-looking (and slightly chubby) monk, creeping along a darkened passageway, carrying thick candles as torches.
A hand (Constantine's?) pulling a sheet of black canvas over the scratched-up face of a youngish man in the tattered, bloodied remains of a cassock.
Chas looking freaked-out by something out of camera range.
Constantine (V.O.): "What's to stop hell from makin' a pass at heaven's gate during the changing of the guard?"
Two Monica Bellucci-clones walking side by side into the shadows of a dark street, approaching us. As they step into a pool of shadows, their eyes start to glow red.
Male voice with a German accent (V.O.): "You have that rare gift, Constantine: Use it to protect your sisters and brothers."
Constantine sitting with his head in his hands, grinding his teeth, eyes screwed shut.
A winged male demon, clad in a long black coat, perched on the capital of a column, laughing maniacally.
Constantine (V.O.): "A gift? More like a curse straight from hell."
Constantine laying on his back, shirt torn open. One of the demonic brunettes slithers over him, her mouth seeking his.
Lightning strikes. Blackout.
Title cards on screen:
Heaven's Door is Unguarded
And The Faith of Millions is Under Fire
The Battle Begins
AUGUST 22, 2005
Constantine: Changing of the Guard
A fanfic by "Matrix Refugee"
