The bathroom door slammed shut like a verdict.
Constantine stood in the hallway, staring at the wall opposite, his eyes doing that particular thing they did after he'd witnessed something that genuinely he wished he hadn't. Glazed. Distant. The expression of a man whose brain had quietly checked out and gone somewhere nicer.
Beelzebub, he thought. Lord of Flies, Prince of Hell, one of the great infernal powers — and he's in my bathtub.
"John, don't leave me—"
Lester's wail came muffled through the door, followed by the dense, layered buzzing that had apparently taken up permanent residence in the flat's air. Constantine turned and walked away from it with the unhurried steps of a man making a principled decision.
He stood in the middle of his living room for several minutes. The crying from the bathroom continued without pause. It was, he reflected, the kind of sound that could hollow a person out if they let it get to them. He'd known Gary Lester for long enough to know that the man had no shortage of genuine suffering to work with, but compassion was a tool, and right now he needed a clearer head than compassion allowed.
He put on his coat, picked up his cigarettes, and went out.
The street was wet, the evening air carrying the particular London cocktail of diesel, rain, and someone's chips from three doors down. Constantine moved quickly, past a long wall thick with graffiti — bright, sprawling work, some of it genuinely good — and toward the corner shop.
Just before he reached it, a man passed him going the other direction. Young, Asian, American accent — Constantine caught the edges of it as the man said something admiring about the mural behind them. Well-dressed, recently arrived by the look of him, still doing the thing tourists did where they actually looked at things.
In another life, another version of himself — the version from ten years ago who'd had fewer scruples and more debt — Constantine would've clocked him as a mark. Easy. Friendly face, distracted attention, probably carrying cash.
But not today. More pressing matters.
He shouldered through the corner shop door.
Crack. The door caught someone on the other side.
"Oi — d'you have eyes, mate?!"
The man who'd been browsing the shelves behind the door turned around: a bald hippie, neck reddening, righteous indignation rising off him like steam. The kind of bloke who'd attended three anti-establishment rallies last month and wore it as a personality.
"Get out of here, you—"
"Ali." Constantine stepped past him without a glance, heading straight for the counter. "Ten packets of Silk Cut and a dozen cans of insecticide. The strong stuff."
A second bald hippie reached out and caught his companion by the arm. "Leave it, Kenny. That's Constantine."
The name landed in the room like a dropped brick. Kenny shut his mouth.
Constantine's reputation in this corner of London was the sort that didn't require elaboration. Not universally known, but within the particular shadow-world of people who knew what the shadows contained — very much known. Something unpleasant in a suit. A man who could make you genuinely wish he hadn't noticed you.
"Right away, John," said Ali from behind the counter, already turning to the shelves.
Constantine's phone was already out. Two rings, then a low, unhurried male voice.
"Yeah. Who is it?"
"Chas. It's John." He tucked the phone against his shoulder and watched Ali load insecticide cans into a bag. "Don't ask questions. Get yourself to my flat as soon as you can and bring some medicine. Friend of mine's sick, staying here."
Silence on the other end.
"Don't tell me you're busy. Just come." He hung up before Chas could respond.
He exhaled. Chas was like that — all long pauses and minimal words — but he was also reliable in a way that almost nobody else in Constantine's life had ever managed to be. If he promised something, it got done. Right now that was worth more than conversation.
Mrs. M was waiting at the bottom of the stairs when he got back, which was never a good sign.
"Constantine," she said quietly, with the air of someone imparting sensitive intelligence. "While you were out — a young man came looking for you. Asian, mid-twenties. Well-dressed, very polite. I've put him in the front room."
Constantine stopped. Asian. Well-dressed. The man from outside the graffiti wall.
The coincidence was too neat. In his experience, coincidences usually were.
He took the stairs two at a time.
"Slow down!" Mrs. M called after him. "Good heavens. The manners on this one."
He opened the front room door. Empty. The room was exactly as he'd left it — just without the visitor apparently in it. He checked the other rooms by instinct, ears open. Nothing. No sound from anywhere except—
He realized the sound from the bathroom had stopped.
That's not right.
He lit a cigarette. Walked quietly to the bathroom door. Listened. Then opened it.
What he found was not what he'd expected.
The Asian man from the street was standing in the middle of the bathroom, a can of insecticide in one hand and something leafy in the other — a clover, of all things. The floor was clear. The walls were clear. The ceiling, which twenty minutes ago had been a living tapestry of every winged creature that called London home, was just a ceiling again. The air smelled aggressively of chemicals, but it was empty air.
"Lucky that Dave's formula is non-toxic," the man was saying, in the easy American English of someone making polite conversation in an unusual setting. "Otherwise I'd have had to improvise with something from the Pokémon catalogue. Anyway—" He turned. "How are you feeling?"
Lester was still in the bathtub. He wasn't speaking. He stared at the clean tiles with the expression of a man watching something miraculous that he didn't quite believe yet. His body was still curled in on itself, rigid with leftover fear — until he saw Constantine in the doorway, and something in his face loosened slightly.
Constantine looked at the insecticide cans he'd just carried home, then at the corner of the bathroom where they'd apparently already been superseded. He set his bag down.
"Right." He stepped forward and clapped the man on the shoulder. "I appreciate the pest control, genuinely. But my friend and I have private business to discuss, so if you wouldn't mind—"
"Leave?" The man turned to look at him directly for the first time. He had a steady gaze, the kind that belonged to someone who'd learned the hard way to stay calm when things went sideways. "You're John Constantine, aren't you." It wasn't quite a question. "Your name travels. London to Gotham, as it happens. That's why I'm here."
Constantine scratched the back of his head. He didn't know the man. Hadn't seen him before today. Which meant the question wasn't who — it was why, and from the sound of it, the answer involved something he wasn't going to like.
Debt collection, revenge, or dirty work, he thought. Always one of the three.
He was already composing his exit strategy, the polite version and the rude version, deciding which to deploy, when the man spoke again — and whatever Constantine had been about to say dissolved before he could say it.