Chapter Text
Danny stared down at the glimmer of red in his hand. The light glinted enticingly. Even this tiny, broken shard, seemed to call to him. He watched it for as long as he could before the voices in his head grew too loud. In a sudden movement, he closed his fist tight, cutting the voices off abruptly.
He hadn’t expected this. It was almost funny. Ever since the accident, he had planned and stressed about every possible scenario. He had backup plans for his parents, Vlad, the government, even the Justice League, but he hadn’t been prepared for this.
Magic. He’d known it was real, in an abstract sense. Several of the Justice League, and their villains, were magic users. But it had always seemed so distant from him. So removed from his many, many problems.
He cautiously opened up his hand, looking at the shard once more. He had destroyed all the other pieces but some part of him had kept him from destroying this one, final shard. As he stared at it, feeling the pull on his mind, an even larger part of him begged him to get rid of it. To fill his hand up with blazing ectoplasm and finally be done with it.
But he couldn’t. He couldn’t. Because he hadn’t seen this coming. And Sam had almost died.
Danny hunched over, almost choking on the reminder. Sam had almost died. No, that wasn’t strong enough. He had almost killed her. Danny had almost killed one of his best friends. It had been far too close. And that thought strengthened his resolve.
Ever since the accident, he had been focused on the threat of technology, of his parents' inventions, of Vlad’s cruel machines. He knew that threat, he understood it.
He didn’t understand magic.
Danny sat in his room, staring down at the red shard until there was a knock at the door. He closed his hand instinctively, looking up. He relaxed when he saw who it was.
“Sam.”
“Hey Danny,” she said cautiously, stepping into his room. There were still bruises on her arms from where he had caught her at the last second. Despite this, she looked more concerned for him. “How are you doing?”
Danny looked back at his hand.
“Sam, I need you to do me a favour.”
“Of course!” She hurried to his side, sitting down next to him. “Whatever you need, just say the word.”
Danny took a deep breath, summoning the last of his courage before offering the shard to Sam.
She recoiled instantly, a horrified look on her face.
“Why are you giving me that? No, why do you have it? I thought you destroyed the staff.
Danny didn’t back down, continuing to hold out the shard.
“I did,” he said quietly. “Most of it anyway. This is the last piece.”
Sam inched further away.
“Well, destroy that part too. I don’t want to see it.”
“I can’t,” Danny said, suddenly desperate. “Sam, don’t you see? We weren’t prepared for this. We need to know, we need to understand. But I can’t do it. I just… I can’t.”
Danny’s voice broke, cut off by a sob. He stared at his friend, begging her with his eyes.
“Please Sam. Please.”
Sam took a deep breath. She scooted back over, carefully taking the shard away from Danny. He couldn’t help but relax once it was out of his grasp. He collapsed forward, his forehead hitting Sam’s shoulder.
“It isn’t enough,” he whispered. “Just understanding Freakshow’s staff isn’t enough. We need to understand anything that could be a threat. We need to understand magic.”
Sam ran her hand down Danny’s back. He couldn’t see her face but he could hear the determination in her voice.
“Don’t worry Danny. We will.”
10 years later…
Constantine huffed, lighting a cigarette. He honestly hadn’t wanted to take this job, but for once he was actually free and hey. Money was money. So why not.
He glanced at the house as he smoked. It didn’t look very haunted to him, but he was still outside the property line. He wouldn’t know for sure until he actually took a look around inside. Still, his bullshit meter was going off. The old lady who owned the house said that a group of college kids had approached her, claiming the place was haunted and that they could drive the ghost away for a small fee. The lady had rejected them, but over time she had begun to suspect that maybe they were right. This had led to her seeking him out as somehow ‘more trustworthy.’
Constantine couldn’t help but snort at that. Him, trustworthy. Perish the thought. Still, at least he wouldn’t rip the old broad off. He’d do a quick look at the house and assure her it was fine, and that would be the end of it. A quick, easy job. He missed those.
The reminder of how often things went wrong in his life caused him to second guess things. He gave the house another glance before sighing. He fished a talisman out of his pocket and used the last of his cigarette to light it on fire. The paper smoldered gently, slowly burning up. Not his most powerful protective charm, but as long as the paper remained lit, it should divert any attention, both normal and supernatural, away from him.
Just in case.
That taken care of, he dropped the stub of his cigarette and entered the house. The second he set foot inside, he couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow. Okay, so maybe the place was haunted after all. There was definitely something unnatural going on.
The second thing that caught his attention were voices. Young voices. Interesting. Hadn’t the old lady mentioned some college kids harassing her?
Constantine mourned the loss of his easy job and continued further into the house, following the voices.
He found the source of the voices in the kitchen. It was a group of college kids, three of them to be exact. There was a girl and two boys. The girl seemed to be a typical goth, with dark clothes and makeup, but the outfit was first and foremost practical, with thick boots and worn black jeans. One of the boys was African American, with glasses and an extremely worn beanie on his head. He looked tired, his clothes just as worn as the girl’s, colors that may have once been bright now faded. The last boy was hard to see, back in the corner of the kitchen. From what little Constantine could see, he was incredibly pale, with dark hair. This final boy was standing still as the other two set up a strange collection of equipment around the kitchen. Constantine watched, curious to see how this was going to play out.
A quick look at their equipment showed typical ghost hunting fare. Constantine would have rolled his eyes at that if it weren’t for the slightly unorthodox design of the equipment and the slight feeling of magic coming off of it. That sharpened his attention. Whoever these kids were, they were mucking about with magic, and that never ended well.
Constantine resisted the urge to groan. This was going to be a bloody headache wasn’t it?
He turned his attention back to their conversation, which mostly seemed to be the girl and boy who were setting up the equipment complaining.
“Why are we even doing this?” The girl spat, setting up a sensor. “That old coot didn’t even believe us. We should just move on, try to find an actually paying job.”
“Hey now, don’t blame me, blame the boss man,” the African American boy responded. He was sat in front of a laptop connected to all the various devices set up in the room. He adjusted something on the screen before turning back to the girl. “I’m all for leaving, but Mr. Bleeding Heart over there says this thing could hurt her.”
The girl rolled her eyes, turning the sensor on with a sharp smack.
“Yeah, in ten years. She’ll be dead by then.”
“Oh I wouldn’t say that.” The other boy finally spoke from where he had been lurking in the corner, inspecting a picture on the wall. He turned towards his companions, a smile on his face. “I’d say she has at least twenty five years left in her.”
As the final boy stepped closer, Constantine couldn’t help but stiffen. There was something wrong with him. The boy absolutely reeked of death magic, in a way that shouldn’t be survivable. Constantine almost would have thought the kid was dead if he couldn’t see him breathing.
Ok, so these kids weren’t just messing with magic. They’d already messed with it, to such an extent that something permanent had happened to one of them. Whatever it was, it hadn’t seemed to scare them off. In fact, they seemed incredibly casual about their friend's condition. This was further proved when laptop boy snorted.
“Yeah well, I guess you'd know,” he muttered, typing away on his computer. He straightened after a moment, rubbing the spot between his eyebrows. “Right well, everything is set up. Before we start, Danny could you do an initial sweep? I wanna make sure our filters are working properly.”
“Sure,” the other boy, Danny apparently, said easily. Constantine realized the danger a second too late as Danny's eyes lit up green. A powerful wave of…something swept over him. His talisman instantly burnt to ash, unable to stand against such a powerful force and Constantine was left with nothing as three sharp gazes immediately locked onto him.
Shit, Constantine thought emphatically. This was bad. Still, he didn't let any distress show on his face, raising one hand in greeting.
“Hello. Fancy meeting you lot here.”
The unnamed kids glared at him suspiciously, but Danny just smiled back.
“Hey man. Cool trick. Sorry for breaking it.”
Constantine shrugged, putting his hands in his pockets. It was a casual gesture, but it allowed him easy access to his more powerful talismans.
Just in case.
“Hey, no harm done. It was mostly just a precaution. The old lady said this place was haunted. Am I right in thinking you are the ones who told her that?”
Constantine was a bit worried that mentioning the old woman was a mistake, but luckily Danny’s face lit up.
“She told you about us? How sweet! Oh, by the way, was that good Tucker or do you need me to do another one?”
Tucker stopped glaring at Constantine to check the laptop. He clicked around a bit before nodding.
“Yeah, that was good. Filters are working. Should I start the search?”
“Wait, hold on,” the girl interrupted. She pointed at Constantine, eyes narrowed. “The old lady mentioned us? Did she… hire you?”
Constantine had to admit, he hadn’t expected that question. Still it was harmless enough. He nodded, opening his mouth to speak only to be cut off when the girl exploded into swears.
“God damn it! All that work, all that effort to find someone with both a real problem and a high probability of believing us, only for her to hire someone else! I swear to god, I am going to break all of her stupid porcelain dolls, they’re creepy as hell anyway.”
Tucker broke into laughter, still focused on his laptop.
“Awww, poor baby. Is princess still not used to living paycheck to paycheck? Do you miss daddy’s money after all?”
The girl turned her glare on Tucker.
“Need I remind you that my family's money is the only thing keeping this operation afloat. Once it’s gone, we’re screwed. You two should be taking this more seriously.”
Tucker waved a dismissive hand at her, still paying more attention to his laptop.
“Yeah, yeah, I know. Should I start the search or not?”
“Why should you?” The girl grumbled, crossing her arms. “I say we cut our losses and let Mr. Mystery deal with it.”
Normally, Constantine would have agreed. It was better to let the more experienced person deal with the issue. But something about this group gave him pause. Despite their bickering and their age, he couldn’t help but feel like there was something here. He considered for a split second longer before making a decision.
“How about this,” he said, interjecting into the conversation. “I’ll give you the payment the old lady gave me as long as you let me watch your process.”
Three gazes locked back onto him. Suspicion crept back into Tucker and the girl’s faces, though Danny seemed as unbothered as ever.
“Dude, no offense, but why would you do that?” Tucker asked, actually looking up from his laptop. Constantine shrugged again.
“I don’t really need the money, but having more occultists who actually know what they’re doing is always a good thing these days.”
It was true. Living in the House of Mysteries, he didn’t have to deal with anything like rent or a mortgage. He mostly spent his money on cigarettes and alcohol, and he had enough lying around to tide him over for now. Making sure these kids weren’t going to accidentally get themselves killed by messing around with the dead was a lot more important to him than a few hundred bucks.
Danny took a step forward, putting a hand on the girl’s shoulder.
“It’s fine Sam. Let’s just start the search. We already set everything up, we might as well finish the job.”
Sam. Now he had names for all three of them. They seemed awfully trusting. Or no. Danny seemed trusting and the other two followed his lead.
Interesting.
Given the go ahead, Tucker did something on his computer that caused all of the devices around the room to light up. Constantine could only assume they were searching for the ghost.
“Why not use a spell?” He asked, genuinely curious. “You three are obviously familiar with magic. Wouldn’t that be simpler?”
Tucker snorted dismissively.
“Please. My babies are far superior to any old spell.”
“Hey,” Sam said sharply. “Your ‘babies’ would be useless if it weren’t for my hard work pounding the essentials of magic into your thick skull while you were still an idiot teenager failing every class in school. Show some respect.”
Tucker ignored her, continuing to tap away at his laptop.
“You see, technology offers something that spells do not: modification. A spell will only do the exact thing it is designed to do, while I can change the parameters on my babies to ignore certain frequencies, only look for a specific frequency, change the range they’re searching, all kinds of things. Extremely useful, especially with Danny on the team. Any spell you used in here would just pick up on him. With the filters built into my devices, we can ignore Danny and search for any other supernatural forces here.”
Ah, so they were acknowledging Danny’s… weirdness. Constantine would have to tread carefully here.
Actually, screw that. Constantine did not do caution or subtly. His brand of problem solving was to create a bigger problem to cancel out the first one. The kids seemed easy going enough, it would be fine.
“So we’re talking about the elephant in the room then?” He asked, leaning against the wall. “I have to admit, you seem a tad too trusting of some random man you just met.”
Sam scoffed.
“Please. You were using a spell powerful enough that not even Danny noticed you til he went looking. Any magician capable of that would clock Danny a mile away. We’re not stupid.”
“Got me there, love.” Constantine said with a rueful grin. He tensed at a sudden spike of energy in the room. Sam glowered at him, eyes and a tattoo on one arm beginning to light up purple.
“Do not call me that.”
Constantine held up his hands, taking a step away.
“Didn’t mean anything by it.” Luckily, the magic in the room began to subside. Constantine made note of how… uncontrolled it felt. That would have to be dealt with.
Before anything else could be said, Tucker’s laptop began to beep.
“Gottem!” He crowed, his tapping increasing in speed. “Trapping them now. What do you think Danny?”
Danny stepped forward, tilting his head as he took in a seemingly empty space. He held out a hand, some sort of energy coalescing in it. Constantine watched warily as some sort of amorphous blob took shape in the air. Danny grinned, his face eerie in the light.
“Hello there. What are you doing here?”
A strange static screech filled the room. Constantine gripped his talismans, uneasy. Sam and Tucker looked more calm, but even they couldn’t help but wince. Only Danny looked entirely unaffected, still smiling. That smile looked far less welcoming now.
The screeching stopped and Danny hummed consideringly. He shook his head, turning to Sam.
“She’s too angry. I don’t think I can convince her to move on. We’ll have to do it the old fashioned way.”
Sam nodded sharply. She knelt down by a duffle bag, pulling out a handful of candles. She set them up around the shape, lighting each of them. A quiet whisper and magic flickered through the candles, setting up a barrier. At the same time, Tucker was reorganizing a set of devices that Constantine didn’t recognize. As they lit up and began to hum, he realized that it was another set of shielding, only technology based instead of magic based.
“Don’t worry,” Danny said to Constantine. “There’s no danger, but we like to set up failsafes, just in case. You can never be too careful with these kinds of things.”
God, if that wasn’t the truth. Constantine’s respect for the ragtag group went up. Not many magicians were humble enough to admit that things could go wrong with their spells.
Soon, it was Danny and the shape alone in the circle of protections. Sam’s eyes were glinting purple while Tucker was back at his laptop.
“Ok, ok, Danny probe our defenses, make sure there are no holes.”
Danny’s eyes lit up again, but this time Constantine didn’t feel anything. The candles in the circle flickered slightly, but held firm. Constantine, very begrudgingly, felt his respect raise even more. They knew how to make some good protective spells.
Whatever Tucker was seeing on his laptop seemed to be good news. He leaned back, giving Danny a thumbs up.
“Alright we’re good. Go ahead Danny.”
Danny nodded, held out a hand, and then ripped open a portal to the fucking Infinite Realms.
“What the fuck?” Constantine couldn’t help but yell, scrambling away. Sam and Tucker, the little bastards, had the audacity to laugh at him. Danny gave a mischievous glance before gently ushering the blob through the portal before closing it. With that done, Sam made a slight hand gesture, causing her candles to go out. Tucker tapped a few more things on his laptop before closing it.
“Alright, good job team. Let’s pack things up before getting our money from Mr. Mystery.” Tucker said cheerfully. Constantine looked between the kids, putting a hand over his racing heart.
“No, no, what the fuck was that. How did you do that? That was.. That was so fucking dangerous, how on earth did you do that without causing permanent damage to the fabric of our bloody reality?”
Danny just shrugged. Shrugged. Constantine felt slightly hysterical.
“What can I say? There are some benefits to my… situation. I promise, it is perfectly safe. You could consider us experts when it comes to the Infinite Realms.”
Constantine looked around, feeling things out. Somehow, Danny was right. Everything was fine. Even with all the protective spells dismantled, he never would have guessed what had happened here. He relaxed slightly as he realized the world wasn’t about to fall apart.
Still. That had been a nightmare.
He fished his cigarettes out of his pocket, shakily lighting one.
“You couldn’t have warned me?” He grumbled as he lifted it to his lips. Sam gave him a disapproving look.
“You shouldn’t smoke in here.” Constantine just gave her a dirty look. Maybe if the three of them hadn’t scared the piss out of him, he wouldn’t be smoking right now.
Danny laughed sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck.
“Sorry, but I didn’t really think you would believe me.”
Fair enough. The group fell silent as the kids packed up their equipment and Constantine smoked. His thoughts raced as he worked through his cigarette.
The Infinite Realms was one of the most dangerous and least understood things in the magical community. Most people ran in the opposite direction when they heard anything about it, Constantine included. And yet these three college kids somehow had not only information about it, but direct access to it.
This was dangerous. If it was some other magician that found this out, these kids could be in real danger. There were people out there who would do anything to get solid, reliable information about the Infinite Realms. He needed some excuse to keep in contact with Danny and his gang, some way to keep them safe. But what…
He remembered Sam’s uncontrollable burst of magic earlier. It made him wonder…
“So, you lot obviously know a lot about the Infinite Realms,” he said as they finished packing up. “Death magic seems to be a specialty of yours. But how are you with with the other branches of magic?”
Danny grimaced.
“Not great… We focused our efforts on death magic for obvious reasons, but there have definitely been times when we’ve run into problems that weren’t ghost related and had to just leave."
Constantine considered being delicate before throwing the idea out the window.
“I’m surprised you stuck with it, considering.”
Danny looked confused for a second before his face cleared.
“Oh. I see. Don’t worry, it wasn’t magic that did this to me. We learned magic after to help… deal with it.”
Constantine frowned. That didn’t sound good. He gave the group a good, long group. They looked… tired. Their clothes were old, their faces thin. Their tech was haphazard and thrown together, their magic just enough to hold back disaster. They were all sharp edges and endless potential.
He held back a groan. This was going to be a bloody pain.
Mind made up, he held out his hand to Danny.
“My name is John Constantine. I’d like to propose a deal. I’ll teach you all about different types of magic and in return, you help me if I ever run into anything Infinite Realms related. Sound fair?”
Danny didn’t even hesitate. He reached out and took Constantine’s hand, a large smile on his face.
“Deal.”