Blake knew two things with utmost certainty:
John Constantine was in his house.
The rooms and halls of the House of Secrets moved. He had been warned when he first arrived, not yet knowing it would become his new home. Not yet knowing that the motley assortment of mercenaries and monsters that walked beside him would become his family— most of them, that is. Cheshire had ended up betraying them, Parademon sacrificing himself shortly afterward. But the rest? The rest he’d die for, no hesitation.
The rooms and halls moved, but certain portions of the House did not. So long as he kept to this territory, Blake knew that he’d always find his way. Almost always. The House was a living thing, after all, with strange moods that came and went at odd times. There was a very, very small chance that, even if he kept to the main pathways of the House, it would still lead him into its depths. Over the many years of his stay in the House, it had only happened twice before. The first time had left him wandering for a good twenty minutes. The second time, he was lost for almost three hours.
The third time was right now.
Blake rubbed his neck, trying to get his bearings. He had only wanted a quick midnight jaunt to the kitchen to make some eggs. He had gotten the eggs, it was the return trip to his room that had become problematic. So here he was, dressed only in a pair of boxer shorts, wandering a labyrinthine mansion from before the beginning of human civilization. Again.
His woes were forgotten in an instant when Blake noticed three things simultaneously:
A subtle shift in air pressure. Something to ignore, that happened from time to time in the House.
The sound of footsteps in the distance. Now, Blake knew what his family’s footsteps sounded like. The weight of their tread, the pattern of their stride. These footfalls matched none of theirs.
The scent of a particular brand of cigarette smoke. He had smelled it once before, when Black Alice, a former teammate with the ability to temporarily steal the powers of any magic-user from any distance, had swiped the spells of one John Constantine. Whenever Alice stole magic, her clothes would morph into a replica of the magic-user’s costume. That specific fragrance had been woven into the trench coat cast about Alice’s shoulders.
Blake had never met Constantine before, but he knew his reputation. If anyone could bypass the House’s all-encompassing anti-surveillance wards, it would be a bastard like him. A magician of his caliber could accomplish some pretty nasty things in a place of power like the House of Secrets. Blake, on the other hand, knew less than nothing about magic.
What Blake did know, however, was how to hunt. He was the greatest tracker in the world. Provided that Constantine wasn’t using magic to scan his surroundings, Blake would have the drop on him— thanks to Blake’s near-superhuman senses, he knew that he had heard Constantine well before Constantine could hear him.
With the quiet tread of a honed killer who had spent the bulk of his 20s cat burgling and his early 30s hunting alongside wild lions, Blake sped stealthily through empty halls. It was going to be an ambush.
