Time Is The Fire In Which We Burn

"Nick."

Detective Nicholas Gage stared at the patch of wall, his eyes glazed and unfocused. Around him, forensics specialists began to slowly shuffle in and out of the apartment that the police had cordoned off, but there was an eerie stillness to the air, a kind of apprehensive silence that no one seemed willing to break. Every creak of the stairs, every drip of condensation from rusted pipes, every shuffle and groan of the beaten and run-down tenement was amplified, a chilling atmosphere that was almost as menacing at the crime scene that lay within. Almost.

"Nick."

An insistent tap of the shoulder finally grasped the Detective's attention. He turned, eyes settling on the concerned frown of Detective Carlos Alvarez.

"You okay, bro?"

The silence lingered a moment longer, the faintest shake shifting Gage's head. "No, Carlos." All their years on the force, all the crime scenes, the bodies, the Gotham psychos; Alvarez had never seen his partner this rattled. This afraid. "I'm not even close."

Concern radiated from Alvarez as Gage led the way down the scuffed and scruffy hallway, paint peeling off the walls, moisture seeping from the plaster. It was weird; this was a pretty okay neighbourhood, the kind of place where you could charge a decent amount and attract a decent class of tenant. That was the way of Gotham though: even in the nicest parts of town, there was something dank rotting away at it's heart.

The door to Apartment 52 creaked open. More of the same. It clearly used to be a fancy space, modern layout, nice furniture, all left to rot and ruin, all neglected to the point of disrepair. Sad story, really, but exactly the kind of dive where you expected to find -

"¡Dios mío!" Carlos muttered, as his eyes finally climbed upwards towards the ceiling: the reason that they were here. Out of reflex, his hands gestured a quick crucifix across his forehead and shoulders, not wanting to stare at the unholy spectacle before him, but somehow entirely unable to tear his eyes away.

"Did you call Infernal Affairs?" Alvarez asked in a hushed whisper.

"Yeah," Gage replied, equally sombre. "They're on their way."

* * *

Hector hesitated as he stepped out of the car, carefully waiting until his partner's door began to swing closed before he nudged his into pursuit. As the two clunked in almost perfect unison, Hector's hand clenched into a fist of victory at his mediocre achievement. It was the little things though, right? The tiny victories, the tiny moments of joy that kept you sane, especially in a line of work like this.

His hands fell to his hips, hitching back his jacket enough for a dim flicker of rare Gotham sun to glint off the badge clipped to his belt. He probably looked pretty damned heroic; and held the pose for a moment or two longer, just in case there were any hot young uniforms hanging around outside the crime scene. It was weird. You'd think that after having served as a cop for a few years before he made Detective, he'd have moved past the whole women in uniform weakness, but nope. Still hot. Especially with their hair up. It was his weakness. His kryptonite. Except, y'know, completely different to actual kryptonite, aside from maybe making him a little bit weak at the knees. Maybe the eventually killing him with enough exposure part too: depends how many dates he managed to screw up on, and whether or not they broke up with him before he had the chance to become murder-worthy annoying.

He glanced across to his partner, and in an instant his demeanour shifted. In a wonderful display of practised athletics, he slid gracefully across the hood of the car and landed perfectly on his feet, reaching out to snatch the cigarette out of his partner's mouth before he'd even managed to light the thing.

"Damn it John," he muttered, with all the frustrated tone of a babysitter in way over his head. "No smoking at crime scenes. We've been over this."

While John wanted to give Hector all sort of applause for that fancy car manoeuvre, the lad went and properly fucked it all up with his following act. Bad form. Not to mention rude as all fuck. What ever happened to the good old days before the age of Oh deary me, the carcinogens are comin' to get us! Bunch of bullocks, that. Science be damned, there were other things to worry about - like a bloody spectre determined to rip off your face and wear it ever since it lost it's own; to name one of many that came to mind - and life was too fuckin' short to not enjoy the little things. Like a perfectly good bifter that was now laying in a gutter.

"We aren't even at the crime scene you bloody little shyte," John grumbled before pulling another lucky strike from the box. "We're still outside and you know as well as I do that if they gave a rat's arse about any of their forensics fuckery we wouldn't even be here."

The new ciggy was lit and John took the first heavenly drag. He did have the decency to blow the smoke away from Hector, though. John Constantine, after all, wasn't a complete bastard.

"Well I give a rat's ass," Hector muttered mostly to himself.

The sad fact was that he really did. For three decades he hadn't aged, hadn't slept, hadn't controlled his own actions, hadn't made his own choices. Joining the GCPD, that had been the first free decision that he had made in recent memory, and damn if he wasn't going to get it right. Protocols, procedures, all that - it genuinely mattered. Maybe that was weird. Maybe someone whose life had been so lacking in agency should have been out there promoting anarchy. Maybe having a Lord of Order in his head for so long had rubbed off on him. Or maybe this was just his rebellion, doing things the right way in protest of the wrong way that Fate had gone about things. But hell, he would follow the rules, and the protocols. He would abide by the regulations. He would be the best damned cop he could possibly be, because that was what he had chosen to do with his life, and with his freedom.

And yet here he was, stuck with the world's most non-conformal, non-procedural, non-professional partner. If he didn't intimately know better, he'd think that Fate was trying to screw with him.

"So, the usual bet?" Hector asked, as they began to make their glacially slow way towards the entrance of the crime scene. "My money is on hoax, as usual. Probably some kid whose watched too much of that TV show. Y'know, the one with the sexy vampires and the brooding?"

On some level, John felt bad for Hector. The kid tried, honestly tried to do the right thing and take charge of his life when he could. It wasn't his fault he'd gotten stuck with the lot he had, Lord of Order and some two-bit blood-cursed magician. But here he was, and here was John and all sentimentality aside it certainly wasn't like he was going to make it any easier Hector. Maybe it was because they were alike in more ways than John ever wanted to admit: Too old for this time, seen too many things that no one else could understand, been through too many things to really be able to be a proper part of society any more. Then again, who wanted to be proper, anyway?

John allowed himself another deep inhale before he rolled the tip of the cigarette between his fingers and snuffed it out. Kept it decent that way, meant he could relight it when this was over. For now, it would live behind his left ear. A bit of a grin formed at the bet. At least Hector hadn't lost all of his sense of humour.

"Still beyond me how trash like that got popular. If kids knew the reality of vampires..." He shook his head. "There is nothing sexy 'bout something whose body fluids are all made of one kind of red goopy substance. And I mean all body fluids." John didn't bother to suppress the shudder the memory brought on.

He stopped in front of the door that lead upwards, stepping aside only to allow some young forensics type to pass. The typical action would have been to turn to watch her go - well, watch parts of her, at least. The way the young lass looked though? That torn expression between fear and nausea that let you know the girl wasn't going to be getting any sleep that night? More than enough to deter that line of thought, that was for sure.

"Y'know, call it experience or something but I think you're backing the wrong horse this time around, mate."

John gestured to Hector, a slight wave of the hand towards he ever-ominous staircase leading up to the second floor of the house.

"After you, Fate child."

"Hawk-child," Hector grumbled back. Not it was exactly much better, but if John was going to insist on describing him as a child of anything, he'd rather it be his actual heroic parents, rather than the transdimensional asshole who'd taken his body for a thirty-year non-consensual joy ride.

As John bravely ushered Hector to go first, the way he always seemed to whenever there was even the faintest glimmer of potential danger, the Detective felt a strange oppressive weight in the air, almost as if the air was thick and heavy with something; like heat and humidity, only not. Almost as if his vision was obscured and clouded, yet he could still see perfectly. In his mind he felt whispers. Chaos. Evil. Darkness. Death.

He tried to ignore it, tried to shuffle aside the unwanted encroachment of Nabu upon his thoughts. He forced his police training to assert itself. His eyes studied the walls; the damp; the peeling paint; the rotting wood. A building left to fall into ruin, just like the rest of Gotham. He glanced over his shoulder at John, who seemed equally interested in surveying the scene.

"Really looks like they let this place go to hell."

"Let's hope that's not the actual case, mate, for both our sakes."

John knew Hector could tell something was up, not that there had been any change in the lad's posture or anything else so obvious, it was more that Constantine could feel the difference of the place itself now that they were up a few flights and if he could, well then his partner bloody well was aware of it too. It was one of the nicer side effects of the entity that was riding shot gun in Hector's life, meant that there was less explaining bad feelings and more getting right down to the dark business of it all. There weren't many people in his life who John could say had that ability, and while Hector wasn't the most attractive one on the list, he was all right just the same.

Sadly though, his little quip seemed less and less likely the closer they got to the room in question. It was bad when he felt that sense of foreboding go right through his blood, making every damn step seem like it took far too much effort to make. They still made it down the hall though and had the forensics team part before them like the bloody Red Sea. It only took one look around the room to have John reach behind his ear and retrieve his beloved from earlier; no way would Hector fault him for wanting a fag with a sight like this before them.

"You know," he half mumbled around the cig as he lit it back up. "I fucking hate winning that bet."

A conflict of emotions twisted in Hector's chest and gut. He knew this feeling, this helplessness, this powerlessness. He'd felt it every day for thirty years as he'd stared out through his own eyes and watched whatever actions Doctor Fate deemed best. He'd screamed, and yelled, and raged inside his own head, utterly incapable of affecting any kind of change to what he saw before him. This was the same.

His eyes wanted to look away, but he wouldn't let them: just as he hadn't let himself look away from the actions that Fate had committed in the name of Order. It was horrific: there simply was no other word for it. A young woman, impaled on the ceiling in a perverse parody of the crucifiction, hair spread around her like a halo, as if gravity had become confused about which direction it was supposed to pull. Blood pooled in a crimson lake across the apartment's wooden floor, and dripped in thick, conjealed droplets from the slashed wrists spread out to her sides - self inflicted, it seemed at a glance; in a city as dark and depressed as Gotham, every cop had seen more than their fair share of suicide crime scenes.

There was more. Spider webs of fractured plaster radiated out from around her, charred and blackened by scorch marks as if the roof had been subjected to flames; and yet their victim showed no signs of burning. A pyrokinetic metahuman, perhaps, unleashing a surge of fire in her death throes? But no, that only explained a piece of the puzzle. That was what skeptics did, those who lived in denial of the larger world they lived in; of the undeniable truths that lay beyond the limits of comprehension and understanding. This was magic; Hector could taste it in the air. Something dark or bloody; something ritualistic.

His gaze settled on what they had been avoiding: the bloodsoaked shaft of splintered wood that pierced through her abdomen and into the ceiling beyond. It could have been anything; a weapon, a branch, a chair leg; there was no way to tell. Hector's eyes scanned the surroundings. Nothing broken; nothing out of place; nothing disrupted from the normalcy of what should have been a pleasant and nicely decorated apartment. But, whatever decay had corrupted the hallway was more intense here; mouldy fabrics, rotted furniture, faded paintwork; something truly unholy had been here, something that had perverted and corrupted the very fabric of reality with it's mere presence. The list of things dark and powerful enough to have such an effect was short, but it was a list none the less; none of it good.

"We're going to need to get her down from there."

Hector's voice was quiet, and hoarse. He didn't wait for John's agreement; didn't wait for the duo from the medical examiner's office to provide whatever input they opened their mouths to offer. Words formed in Hector's mind, and he uttered them, a hand extending out towards the victim as he did so. "Lepsid Siht Esruc," he uttered gently, a strange reverberation twisting his words, as if another voice from nowhere spoke them along with him. As the sounds drifted across the room towards the appartment's owner, the signet ring on Hector's fourth finger began to glow, a subtle engraving of an ankh pulsing with a radient golden light that was echoed in the distance, wrapping around the victim like an aura. Another hand reached out, towards the other occupants of the room this time; "Yel reh ot tser," was uttered, and the waiting gurney began to drift across the room. Gently, the golden aura dislodged the young woman from the ceiling; in an instant her body felt limp, but the aura held it aloft, turning her gently in the air and laying her to rest on the floating stretcher. The medical examiners fidgeted awkwardly; Hector offered them a nod, and willed the resting victim to drift across the room towards them, the magic persisting until both of them had taken hold.

Hand falling back to his side, Hector slumped a little in his posture, feeling drained from the effort. His eyes settled on the pool of blood, a forlorn frown falling into place on his features. He didn't know her name, he realised. That was the protocol: you arrive at a crime scene, and you get briefed; but he'd been so sure that this was false, so sure that this was beyond their purview that he hadn't even thought to comply with it. As if jurisdiction mattered; but still; the hardened nature of a detective who'd seen it all had never felt so disrespectful, and Hector silently admonished himself for having fallen into it.

He didn't look at his partner as he spoke.

"What the fuck does this, John?"

"A right manky cunt," He replied with the first words that came to his mind as he watched the gurney being wheeled out and avoided the rather offended look cast his way by one of the female examiners.

There was a time when he may have offered a bit of an apology towards the woman, or rather the dead one being taken off to the coroner, but that was long ago and it'd been ages since John had even felt the slightest twinge of a need to make amends for his actions. He was already damned, after all, no sense in trying to avoid it by playing nice and pretending not to be just as crude as the world itself. Besides, he wasn't exactly embellishing on his feelings or being crass for the sake of it. John knew this sort of magic, a bit more personally and intimately than he would have liked, and he knew damn well the type and quite possibly the who that was responsible. He usually trusted his instincts on these sorts of matters, but this was almost as if it was being served right up to him. Best to play it safe and make damn sure it was the bastard, then and keep his initial guess to himself. No need to get Nabu all agitated and at the ready any more than the fatey knob probably already was.

"Or to be more exact - a demon, or someone associated with their lot. Guessing by the lack of paraphernalia we didn't just stumble across the summoner, either." An annoyed smokey huff left him from the side of his mouth. "There'll be more like this out there."

More like this.

It didn't feel fair to have to contend with such a sobering thought without a lick of booze inside you. He almost said as much aloud, but thought better of it. Constantine would probably be all too prepared to hook him up, but as much as Hector wanted a little something to numb his thoughts, at the same timehe didn't. They didn't deserve that reprieve, not when it was supposed to be their job to keep people like this safe. At times like this, he wondered if Nabu had been right to steal him the way he had; the same of Raguel, T'Charr, Terataya, and others: beings who required and demanded a saccrifice - a vessel - in order to lend their power and assistance to the wold of men. Hector had been freed from his own bargain with Fate, though now he found himself bound by a new one, a parole of sorts that let him be himself in exchange for succoming to Fate when He was needed. It was a complicated arrangement, one marred by circumstance and interpretation. In situations like this, it was hard to feel as if Fate wasn't needed; as if the Detective was somehow adequate compensation for the absense of the Doctor. In Gotham, those situations were all too frequent; quietly, Hector wondered if the choice to come here had truly been his own, or if Nabu had seeded thoughts in his head, surrounding him with the temptation to become more and do more than a mere mortal ever could.

That was why Hector valued his partner, more than he'd ever openly admit. Constantine was the consumate mortal: crass, flawed, and stubbornly determined to do as much good on this mortal coil as one conceivably could, by whatever means necessary. He was the chaos to Hector's order; and between the two of them they had accomplished much. Not enough, perhaps; but they were trying - and that, Hector had come to understand, was the truest embodiment of as much as humanly possible that anyone could ever reach.

"Is that a standard Constantine ominous statement," Hector asked grimly, "Or the we should swing by my apartment to pick up spare pants, just in case level of ominous?"