1965-10-28 - Roma pt1
Summary: After leaving Jebediah at Atomic, John and Michael carry on toward John's borrowed home. Specifically to the hallway of don't-ever-come-down-here-unless-you-want-to-die. The goal? To find Nova, the daughter of Merlin, and see if she'll loan them the Siege Perilous. It's a heftier ask than a cup of sugar.
Related: None
Theme Song: None
douglas morbius constantine 


Constantine dropped ring of salt.


Just after Michael and John left Jebediah Guthrie off at Atomic where he'd been holding down the fort the Damned Duo beat feet back to Chinatown to Constantine's inherited House of Mystery. Aptly named it sort of did as it pleased. Houses shouldn't be able to do that but this one in the hallway with the door with five deadbolts and much warding on it and a helpful sign in Strange's handwriting that read 'For God's sake just keep closed' was a hallway that just loved to bleed off into other dimensions.

This was especially useful on trash Tuesday when if it was raining instead of taking the bins out one could drop the rubbish into the door that led directly to the abyss. Helpful that. Still if he wanted a shortcut to other realms? well he was sitting on it. The downside? More opportunities for visitors and he wasn't always up for entertaining company.

John started to gather a few things from teh shelves packing light but withthe essentials slinging what he needed into a doctor's bag with a shoulder strap. "Right then where we are going?" He looked up to Michael taking a deep breath and… a silent thank you, "the rules and physics may be different so best rule? We be our polite charming selves and… hope she doesn't remember too much of our previous encounter too terribly. Might be into her for a bit of a favour on this one."


'The Hallway' is infamous to those who have had the misfortune of being inside John's stolen bit of property in Chinatown. Inherited? Well, whatever the case. Michael joins the necromancer on the walk back to the brick building, handily dropping his hat and jacket on the hook on his way inside like he owns the place.

Milling around inside, never too far off from John while he gathers his shopping list of what to bring or what he'll need, watching with a casually curious eyes. He arches both of his brows at John when he asks where they're going, as if to say 'don't you know?' "This is your world, John," Michael supplies with a spread of his hands in front of him, finishing clasped and hanging there. "I'm just here to make sure you don't get killed along the way. You have such a way with people."


Constantine turned and paused blinking at Michael and with a faint smile rephrased, "No I emant… yes we're going to see a woman named Roma. She's what we're looking for. Sort of. Jsut." His brow furrowed and he was terrible at these parts because he was selfish and he was also shite at caring like a normal person. Hand went to Morbius' cheek, thumb brushing over it. "I'm fond of this plan. Also? No apparently we can't do dinner without bloody demons."

That said he shouldered the bag and folded his sleeves back at the forearm, and then once more to keep them from being 'bunchy'. He licked his lower lip and levied eyes on teh door. The expression read: here goes nothing. Planting his feet his hand extended hovering in front of the door. There was a difference between speaking old Gaelic and intoning it. The energy shifted as the House responded pulling that arcana up through it like a conduit rooted…where? We might not wnat to ask. That's how people get answers. He communed with it informing the house they were going to the Starlight Citadel in Otherworld.

The house wept int eh floorboards a faint wail, and the tattoos along John's arms warmed red befor glowing in thin gold lines emiting light and slong the seems of the door the same.


Patiently, Michael waited for John to figure out the way to explain it all. They may speak sibling languages, but they still required some translation in between during times they were digging in deep. So, he waited for John to find the words he needed to explain the issue with a lightly expectant look written on his face.

The hand jumps up to his cheek and something about that sharpened, astute look softens marginally. "A price I will happily pay for an evening out with you. What is a couple of demons here and there? Keep your head on straight and make sure there are others to come."

That was John's freak out moment. It happened. They could move past it now and work to make everything happen properly.

The good doctor had no doo-dads or tools to bring. He was his own greatest weapon, so at this point all he had to bring was himself. Waiting behind the gutter mage while they stood at the threshold to that quintupple locked door, Morbius' eyes flicked back and forth, all over the wall and above the door while John pulled on those mystical threads to make them play him a song. Like a much more complicated juke box, right? Attention jumped back to John's arms as that light traced patterns against his skin. Hands still folded in front of him, Michael expertly ignored the prickling of his skin and every single 'danger!' sense in his paranormal body.


Constantine didn't generally have large freak out moments. He'd run out of time to get anything productive done at all and really didn't everythign fall apart on teh hourly somewhere? He'd save meltdowns for Astra and hoping that history ther enever ever repeated itself. But that was it. a crisis of a feeling. A whole one. He was not immune to fear, fleeting as these things were and dealt iwth it in his own way.

John was a glib sunnovabitch, but every now and then he was the Constant One, that Saint of Last Resorts, and his intent was pure and he was frightening as a focused conduit. Amazing. if he jsut fekking applies himself he can accomplish such snazzy things and yet he keeps putting that energy into harassing Lamont. Still time well spent.

His hand, tattoos still faintly a glow, opened the door and down the hallway he walked boldly, but very cautiously. His hand hovered in front of him as they walked far furhter into a hallway that by now should have then outside on the street…if actual physical space meant something. He rounded an L corner pausing at the door where the hall dead ended its forward path to turn. He pointed to Michael, "Do not… go in that one." That was all the warning he gave. That door was marked with a spiral with a single angular slash through it before, ah! there was one he wanted. He opened up to door and it was bright on the other side. Otherworld. The Brit was crossing to Camelot. here goes nothing.


The hallway is light, refracted into a thousand different pattenrns of color. A Kaleidascope, stained-glass world, shifting and bright and in some ways so beautiful and alien to look upon it hurts. In the distance, rising out of a mist, there is a castle with improbably high towers and spires. There is a roadway of gemstones that leads the way there, and something akin to music is in the air, beautiful, yet alien, otherworldly.


Time very well spent in Michael's book.

Still. This /is/ rather amazing. For all the archaic silliness of magic sometimes, the results can be rather, well, beautiful. Michael was secure enough in his own art to admit that.

The living vampire followed slowly in John's wake; the tap of his hard-soled shoes tapping lightly along the web of halls that they traverse. Pausing long enough to note the symbol on the door that John pointed to. "Is that where you've locked away all of your embarrassing childhood memories?" Glib, an effort of salty familiarity while they continue, trying to dispel some of the tension.

He follows through that door, lifting a hand up against the light to guard his eyes. Once adjusted, the kaleidoscope of color that they walked into was startling. Startling enough in that brilliance and jarring from the dusty, cluttered mess of John's adopted home that Michael actually took a moment of pause after stepping just inside. His breath hitched and eyes widened marginally as he looked out toward the spires. The road laden with gems. The very /musical/ essence of the entire realm. Taken aback.

"Phenomenal," Morbius murmured, awed. Humble enough to admit when he hasn't seen something before.


Constantine casually answered, "Well that'sthe door with the abyss on the other side… so yes. That's precicely true." Given how Michael found out how John got to spend his birthdays growing up? No doubt he wanted to dump them all into a great pit of nothingness. That's not the thought of the hour though and giving JOhn something to rally against? Well that was always productive and grounding.
RMagic, like anything, was both beautiful and terrible. And now Michael walked through a door to a space between spaces and through another door to absolutely nowhere in any earthly realm that could be quantified. John wasn't one to coo over things but the small wonders always did keep him coming back. With faint bemusement and a grin that followed he promised, "If you listen closely enough you can hear it sounding a scant bit like LIttle Richard." Now he'd be listening and listening for it. As if a testiment to the wonders he did indulge himself to look around, take it all inand enjoy that faint pause before putting feet to terrain to move towards the great spire. That big thing? That's where we want to go and hope she is home."


Michael blinked back to focus on the jack-of-sass in the trench coat in front of him, schooling his expression back to something more like himself with a sketch of a wry smile. Back to the present and what mission they're on, Michael walks forward with John, hovering just off the man's right shoulder. Set on the spire, he nods mildly. "We couldn't very well have called ahead, so here's hoping."

Several seconds of silence pass between them and Michael murmurs experimentally, "Good golly, Miss Molly…"


Air and distance don't seem to work the same way here as they do in otherplace. The sun, which doesn't bother Morbius, rises and sets three times on the way there, though the walk only seems to take a couple of hours. At the doors to the fortress, two looming golems made of stained glass with the faces of infants peer down with crystal eyes, and then in unison, open the doors to a great hall with a vaulted cathedral ceiling. Inside, all manner of entities are keeping court. There are jugglers, clowns, a grey alien, a wizard in flowing robes and a hat with stars on it, an old, rotund man with a gray beard and thick black glasses who is poring over a map of a place that has never existed with a purple dragon, someone who looks for ALL THE WORLD like Doug Ramsey except he's in a green suit and is sixteen years old, whispering in the ear of a girl with long brown hair who looks familiar…

And at the far end of the hall, seated on a throne, her black hair gleaming in the light and banded with silver, coiling at her feet sits Roma, Lady of the Northern Skies. At her left hand is something that looks a great deal like a standing mirror, though nothing is reflected in its silver depths.


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