Cloaked Heart-Behrad Tarazi

Slay Anything...

I wasn't one to run. I also wasn't one to commit. So, when Charlie proposed we took the jumpship for a sabbatical, I ran. I ran to Constantine's house to party with Charlie. I mean, after everything that had happened to me in a year, it made sense. Nate and I aren't close. I still blamed him. He pushed me away when I needed him and I still think he's the reason I was locked up. And, I mean, after Hank died, it only got worse. But, we coexisted and acted like distant cousins rather than siblings. Now, at Constantine's house, we had shapeshifted into him and gotten black out drunk the night before. Everything was going fine until we saw the real John Constantine.

"And lo, we thought we were the ones with the magic touch." Charlie said, all of us laughing in response. Gary, who was with Constantine, dropped his bags in response.

"All right, everybody out." Constantine demanded. "Any of you wanna party, you do it somewhere else, all right?" He told them as he practically pushed them out of the door. Charlie and I slumped down on chairs, too hungover to do anything. "How'd you even find this place, Charlie, Jenna?"

We shapeshifted back into ourselves. Charlie, in Amaya Jiwe's body, which she had grown accustomed to, and me in my own body. "You told me about it when you were wasted once." Charlie explained.

"You found your way here, you can find your way out!!" He yelled at us as he walked away.

"What's his problem?" I asked Gary who was still standing there.

"Do the Constantine trick again." He smiled widely, ignoring my question.

XXX

John groaned as Charlie and I sat across from him in the kitchen. "I thought I told you lot to piss off."

"Gary just filled us in on that business with Astra. So why are you drowning your sorrows instead of doing something about it?" We confronted him.

Charlie took the bottle from him. "What happened here, John?"

"I used to run with a bunch back in the day." John started to explain to us. "Became known as the Newcastle crew, spent most of my misbegotten youth in this place. One of them was a powerful witch. I'm back here to consult with her. She's through there." He turned his head right, looking at a door down a tiny hallway.

"So, what are you waiting for?" I asked him. "Come on, get off your ass and go do it."

"Because it's not that easy, all right, Jenna? The witch is Astra's dead mother. Her spirit is waiting on the other side of that door and...none too happy with me."

"There are things in my past I haven't told anyone besides Jenna." Charlie admitted. "So I get the whole waiting to do on your own. But if there was a door I could walk through to solve all my problems...I sure as hell would take that chance." John got up and walked down the hallway.