Summary:John Constantine walks into a bar, and finds something he wasn't expecting. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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Constantine clambers in looking like he just rolled out of a bad situation. Granted this is the docks so it could just be a byproduct of being in the area. Weathered hand rubs over his tired, somewhat bruised mug as footsteps carry him in. Digging into his coat he produces a wallet and folks a twenty longways tenting it with his fingers to tap gently on the bar-top. Someone knows how to make friends with a bartender well enough. The Brit greets the service, "Stout. Draft. Whatever ya got's fine, mate." That taken care of eyes drift around the bar looking for someone or something not immediately jumping out at him.
Mack Linden is pretty sure she's losing her ever-loving mind. A few months ago she walked into a strange tattoo parlor in the East Village. One of her temporary hands on the Quint's Folly raved about it, saying the artist used hand tools instead of a needle gun. She decided to get something to commemorate her grandfather Frank, who passed four years back, but was instrumental in helping her find her path in life.
The tiny shop would have been easy to miss, nestled between a vinyl records reseller and a vintage clothing shop. Inside it had been dim, with serene music, the smell of incense, and the burbling of a small electric fountain. A short, slight, ancient-looking Japanese man stepped out from a doorway covered in a beaded curtain, and gave her a formal bow of greeting. He said he'd been expecting her, which was a surprise since she hadn't made an appointment. And before she could tell him what she wanted, he introduced himself as the Horishi and told her she'd be getting a compass rose on her back, a navigation symbol found on maps. It was perfect, so she didn't even think to argue.
She'd been drunk, and the rest was a blur of pain, music, and words in Japanese which she did not understand. She woke up back on her boat, 12 hours later, with the large tattoo on her back, and fainter indications of a map which seemed to shift and change. She started to see things, images overlapping other people as she passed. Sometimes if she touched an item, she had a flash of a past event that was not natural. And about an hour ago, she saw the ghost of her grandfather on the bow of her ship, smiling at her.
So she's at Shucky's Bar, sitting alone on the stool at the end, with her fourth double of Jameson in front of her. She looks as rumpled as Constantine, and like she's pretty tipsy, and has the look of someone trying to forget.
Constantine turns and leans his elbows back on the bar still hunting details he's not finding. The dame with the bad day? That he found. The bartender gets a nod of thanks his hand draws his change back but pushes the ten spot back their way. He murmurs his thanks and side-glances back to Mack, "Got the look of the day about you." For now he takes a pull from his beer enjoying the simplicity of nothing going to hell for five minutes.
It would be a mild enough conversation if something about the room wasn't starting to feel the slightest bit ''off''. Not glaringly off, but enough for the Englishman's eyes to do another curious pass over the place."
Shucky's isn't Mack's normal bar. She prefers Wharf rats, but something made her come here instead. It was a burning between her shoulder blades, leading her on. It's been happening on and off since the tattoo was done. As Constantine addresses her in his British accent, she glances over at him, looks him up and down, arches a brow on her pixie-ish face, and replies with, "Fuck you, Chauncey." Then she downs her glass of whiskey and signals the tender for another. Her back itches, like something is coming.
Constantine takes the obscenity with a shrug and goes to take a sip of his drink. He waits for the bartender to come back before asking about one individual in particular. "Question. You don't know of a Niko Mamalakis? Had a trawler named Fortune Hunter II? Heard he used to stop up here." Which was to say used to as the boat was found last month adrift out in the harbor with no crew and no sign of its missing captain either. It might be less a concern if it wasn't the third boat this happened to.
"We all know Niko. Knew Niko. He's been missing for a month, just like the others," Mack interjects with a scowl. She gives Constantine a shrewd look, like she has a built in BS-detector. "What's it to you? The police can't seem to find their own asses with both hands when it comes to the harbor."
Constantine when someone bites those squint eyes flick that way. The assessment gets an easy enough agreement. "That's why there's so many copoers in a precinct I imagine. Easier fo some of them to find any of their arses. Also why I'm not police." Looking around he pivots in place to look at the flinty blond. "Spoke with his sister Eleini. She has some ideas what happened. Far fetched but not impossible." Digging into his coat he pulls out a small flat case and pulls out a card handing it to her with two fingers. "John Constantine. Detective. Said that he was getting some weird calls before this all went down. Of course she also went on to say the harbor's cursed. I told her it's New York. She's gonna have to be a bit more specific than that."
"I don't know about cursed," Mack says with a smirk, "haunted maybe." She did just see her dead Grandad puttering about on her boat. "What sort of calls were those?" She reaches out a callused hand to take the business card. He's just a detective, right?
The card, grabbed onto, is jsut infused with supernatural bullshit. Fleeting images of specters, and phantasms, and demons whip through the vague impression like a floodgate. At the heart of it there sitck a circle covered in symbols on concrete and ringed in flames. The body of a young woman lurches as something fel and screeching, is pulled from her, body lurching, and pulled into the ground. The girl is caught by the man in the rumpled coat with bloody hands before the elastic ground pulls her in. ANd then?
John lets go of the card.
As the vision assaults her, the hand that isn't holding the business card whips out and slaps the glass of whiskey off the bartop. It shatters as Mack's whole body goes rigid, as if she's having a seizure. It's only a few fleeting moments, but it's enough for the woman to look like she just ran a full marathon, sweat glossing her forehead, eyes wide, pupils dilated, and her shoulders trembling. "W-what…was that..? Who…what…are you?" She staggers off her stool, staring at him.
Constantine pulls his hand back both hands up and free and clear in the air. This is him officially nooooot laying a hand on the lady. Damn those eyes are wide with the unexpected reaction. It's the Bartender that snaps a "Hey!"
John gives the bartender a quick glance offering, "My tab." The question to him though makes it readily apparent that there's some manner of psychic blow-back off that though damn if he can tell what. "Ummmm it's on the card, luv." And indeed the card reads: John Constantine: Exorcist, Demonologist, Master of the Dark Arts, and Cosmic Midwife. There's a phone-number but no address.
Mack digs out a crumpled handful of dollar bills from her coat pocket and tosses them at the tender, before she gives Constantine a wide berth. "That's not real. None of that is real." She's just having a breakdown, right? She edges towards the door, the card put in a pocket where she isn't in skin contact with it.
Constantine looks back to his glass with a sigh and then up. Yup. He's been chasing signs. Apparently he brought this on himself. Taking another pull from the stout (because he just bought the damn thing) he turns following without crowing, "Well if it's not real, then you didn't just have yourself an episode there and we can all get on with our day and maybe helping Niko out." Dry as toast this one. With a faint modicum of human compassion he says gently, "Look take… your time I won't harass ya. Promise but if you do have questions or answers you either need or don't want? Give us a ring."
Mack squints at the detective suspiciously, but she gives him the faintest of nods before shoving the door open and stomping out into the night. Maybe, maybe she'll call him. If not, it's not hard to find one of the only female fishing trawler Captains on the docks, especially not one who looks like Tinkerbell.