DC Hellblazer: I'm Constantine

###### C26. I'm Constantine

Unedited. Sorry?

Dream or Nightmare? It's always been the same to him. Only humans make tell the difference. He's used to people loving and hating him at the same time. It's never really mattered to him though. Emotions don't outlive logic, do they?

That's why he's always brooding. Not about anything in particular. But this time, he's doing reasonably so.

"I can't find something of mine, Lucien," he's in his castle as he speaks to his librarian. His voice and tone are always without nuance, cool as if he's afraid of getting attached to the words he's speaking. "Something I've been keeping for a friend."

"What, lord Morpheus?" Lucien inquires, calmly.

Morpheus - the King of the Dreaming - the Dream, is seated flat on a step that leads to his throne while Lucien stands before him during this solemn summon. The castle's interior is dull in theme and decoration, and it always seems to be full of lifeless shadows.

Morpheus doesn't give an instant reply. He stays quiet for a stretch, his pale face expressionless. But the slight burrow that forms between his brows speaks to Lucien in a way that words can ever replicate. Whatever he's lost, it's something of great importance.

"Perhaps it's in the library, sir," Lucien says.

"It was," Morpheus replies. "But no more. I'm afraid it might have fallen into the wrong hands."

"Do you suspect that a dream or nightmare might have taken it?" Lucien infers, certain that no other types of beings have been in the library in recent times.

"Worse," Morpheus replies. "A demon has."

Lucien was created to be the librarian of the castle. A keeper of books full of knowledge and stories that will never live to be told. But as he evolved, he mustered another role: caring for the Dreaming realm as if he were a high counsel. It's a job not outright designated to be his, but one if continued to be neglected could lead to a collapse of the Dreaming, the world of dreams.

Dreams and Nightmares are well aware of their creator, the Sandman). But they've grown to treat Lucien equally so, as if the librarian is on par with The Dream. This has not gone by without notice, and Dream is afraid of Lucien's involvement in his recent loss, even if indirectly.

"Have there been any new nightmares?" Morpheus inquires. "Strays you've taken in from wander?"

Lucien thinks briefly. "Actually sir. There has been one recent addition."

"I found him in Fiddler's Green," Lucien explains, with his usual accent. "He said his name is Fuseli, the Lord of Nightmares."

"Fuseli..." Morpheus considers the name. "What's he like?"

"He is a lively, curious little fella that grasps the job of a nightmare, more than most," Lucien speaks, fondly. "He's as intelligent as the Corinthian, with fleshed out bits of primitivity in his personality."

Lucien chuckles inwardly as he recalls a memory, "when I found him, he was claiming Fiddler's Green as his, unaware of its conscience."

"He is a demon," Morpheus says bluntly, without reading too deep into it.

Lucien is taken aback, "but how, sir? Demons do not dream. They cannot enter the Dreaming."

"Maybe it's been so," Morpheus says, his face growing darker than his spiked hair. "But things have changed since Lucifer's retirement."

"I want you to summon him," Morpheus commands with a tone slightly edged toward anger. "This instant."

"Right away, sir," Lucien hurries to leave the Dream's presence, leaving the Dream to his thoughts.

When he comes back, he's followed by a small, green, goblin-like creature that's bouncing happily.

"I'll get to control other nightmares, he said?" the creature asks Lucien, excitedly. "Be their lord for my terrible work, is it?"

"Yes, Fuseli," Lucien smiles back at it warmly. "The King has called you in to reward you."

But when Fuseli sees Morpheus' expression, his feelings of excitement vaporizes. Morpheus has his *mask* on, but he looks more a personification of reckoning than dreams.

"Where did you take them?" Morpheus demands, rising while shadows cloak his form. "Speak, demon!"

Fuseli doesn't wait to know how he's been made. He starts running away, hoping up to escape through the ceiling via the chandelier. Neither Morpheus, nor Lucien chases after him. Instead, Morpheus takes out his pouch of sand and pours it out. In his world, it's magic is boundless.

Fuseli escapes, but before he can find a portal back to Hell, the reality is manipulated and he finds himself trapped in a desolate scape, filled with sand alone. Moreover, it seems that more sand is pouring from the sky.

The demon takes several steps back and aside while fearfully observing the surroundings. He runs in one direction and hits a glass wall. The opposite direction ends in a glass wall too, and so are all the other directions he picks.

Through a violent wind in this scape, Fuseli hears Morpheus speak. "You cannot escape the Sandman as much as you cannot, your transgression."

Fuseli sees the sand rising as more pours in, threatening to swallow him. He's trapped, and no one's coming to save him. Not even the very demon that sent him. It would never risk entering into the Dreaming. Not for anyone's sake. Especially not Fuseli.

So why should he keep protecting that bastard?

"It's Mammon!" fearful, Fuseli shouts for anyone to hear. "Mammon took the wings! He forced me to do it!"

Outside this scape, Morpheus can see Fuseli clearly. But the creature now looks much much smaller for Morpheus has trapped it in an hour glass that can fit into the palm of his hands. The glass is quickly filling up with sand and he can hear the creature's desperation as it snitches.

"I cannot sense them in Hell," Morpheus claims. His voice is calm on the outside, but it's a violent storm to Fuseli. "Do you take me for someone you can fool?"

?!!#%

Fuseli gets washed by another sandstorm.

"I sw..ear!" Fuseli cries, swimming desperately in the swirling sand. "I took them to Mammon."

"What of the keys?" Morpheus demands. "Where did you take them?"

"Keys?" Fuseli repeats and this makes Morpheus angry. Morpheus punishes Fuseli with more violent sandstorms.

But when Morpheus demands again, Fuseli still claims that he doesn't know of any keys. That he only took the wings and the armour. Nothing more.

Thinking that the demon's still lying, Morpheus decides on Fuseli's execution, "You've chosen your fate."

"Perhaps, sir-" Lucien intervenes, interrupting Fuseli's execution. "You might want to reconsider."

Before Morpheus can get angry with him, Lucien adds fast. "Fuseli managed to enter into the dreaming without your immediate knowledge. Who better to help you retrieve what's been stolen?"

"Yes..yes," Fuseli chimes in, hopefully. "I can help you get them back."

"Hellblazer- he.. grff!"

"If they are not in hell, the Hellblazer must have succeeded in taking them," Fuseli adds.

Morpheus thunders. "I do not collaborate with demons."

"Yet you agreed to keeping Lucifer's wings and armour when he left Hell," Lucien challenges. This makes Morpheus insurmountably angry, but what he's lost is beyond his anger. And logic outlives emotions, doesn't it?

"Who is this, Hellblazer?" Morpheus demands of Fuseli.

The Hellblazer - John Constantine - stands straight, stretching his back. It feels good. The way his spine bends backwards - he'd never had imagined he'd get to feel this way so soon. Those wings nearly broke his spine.

Nearly.

"You look..." Zatanna opens up her eyes. She's in Constantine's arms and she can feel the pull as he stretches. A cool breeze is sweeping over her face, and it feels good. It's so much better than she's ever experienced in her life, and that's coming from someone who's always wholly tuned to the world around her.

"...like an angel," Zatanna finishes as she takes in the warm glow that's coming from Constantine.

"I always look like one when I'm close to you," Constantine replies coolly. "But I'm not the one glowing up, luv."

"You are," Constantine adds and gently places Zatanna down. He takes several steps back, until he's unilluminated by her radiance.

Zatanna feels so refreshed, that she yawns from the relaxation. "I've never felt this way in ages."

"Feeling like your old self again?" Constantine asks.

She extends her hands and relaxes her shoulders. "I feel much, much better now. Like something was clogging up my system, but now it's gone!"

"I found you a good place to vent up," Constantine says. "Hell might send it's bill soon for using it as a punching bag from your magic."

Memory clicks. "Oh yeah. You were in hell and I-..." Zatanna starts, and her face darkens.

"Nothing to worry about. All handled," Constantine says, but it doesn't stop Zee from wearing a solemn expression.

"That talisman you gave me... my magic... what happened?" Zatanna wonders as the memories flow.

"Well, it seems the devil wasn't a keen folk in language class," Constantine explains. "The Enochian word for 'soul' is synonym to 'magic'. The difference comes into how you use it."

"He believed I extracted your soul when what I really extracted was the chaotic magic that's been building up in your body, causing instabilities," Constantine continues.

"As for the talisman I gave you," Constantine adds. "It's the Key of Death. It kills someone, as long as they hold onto it."

To be Continued...

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