Starter for @justifiedmuses { John Constantine for Astra Logue }
The silence all around the building was almost eerie. The house was set slightly away from the street, sunk into the bottom end a cul-de-sac that kept it hidden away even if it was still in plain sight, with nothing but high metal fences on each side.
The place was exactly how he remembered it. If it hadn’t been for the vines that had grown to cover a big portion of the outside walls, the dirt covering the windows and the cobblestones, and the visibly unkept garden, one could have thought that the building had been frozen in time for almost twenty-five years.
John clenched and unclenched his fists, before wiping his sweaty palms against his trousers. If someone had told him just a few months before that he would have willingly returned to Newcastle, the place that had given his life the last shove down towards the abyss, he would have laughed in their face...and then sent them to hell. Perhaps even literally. And yet, there he was, standing before the very same house where he had committed his second original sin.
The magician’s blue eyes moved wearily along the lines of the building, before falling on the gates. Someone had placed wards around the property, relatively recently. He could tell because there was still a trail of power lingering in the air...and because sure as hell there had been none the last time he had been there. One more piece of evidence that told him that the information he had gathered was correct.
She was back and, if his timing was right, she was inside. The real question was...Could he truly face her again? Not that he had much of a choice, because if he didn’t show up first, she would have haunted him down, and that might have made things even more difficult.
“Stop bein’ a bloody coward n’ get o’er wit’ it, yeh daft prick,” Constantine muttered under his breath, his inner frustration growing. “Stallin’ ain’t goin’ to do any good to yeh. Or to anyone else.”
Gritting his teeth, John sucked in one last, deep breath through his nose and finally managed to force himself to shove the gate open. The rusty metal squeaked as it moved, the sound awfully resembling a choked scream, and he knew felt a light shock of energy as he crossed the threshold. His presence had to have activated the wards, which means that he would have been an expected, unwanted guest now.
His steps got heavier and heavier as he approached the house main door, but he forced himself to ignore the feeling until he was standing right in front of it. Something twisted in his chest, a mixture of regret, dread and another feeling he couldn’t identify.
Moment of truth, old son.
He raised his hand and knocked.
