27th August 2012
13:05 GMT -5
"Agent… Grayven?"
He recognised me at once, but it took a moment for him to get his thoughts in order. He looks haggard. Tired.
"Officer Danvers." I smile politely, but try to avoid showing actual
joy. This isn't really that sort of occasion. "Thank you for opening the door."
"What-? What are you here for? The DMA people already checked… They already checked."
Surprising what a few FBI agents with a little magic training can turn up when they put their minds to it. The individual known locally as 'Buzz' escaped, but the summoning he was attempting was interrupted. Not before the death of the ritual sacrifice, but from the reports it looked a lot like her involvement wasn't entirely involuntary.
"Ye-ah, I'm… Not here about that. I'm… I'm here about the will."
His face falls slightly. "Oh.
Oh."
"I wouldn't normally even
hear about something like this, but she actually posted me a copy and my clerks brought it to my attention…"
He shakes his head. "There's no way that can be legally binding."
"…
No, but it does express your late daughter's wishes fairly explicitly."
"'Use my body for some… Fucked up magic or some shit like that. Something that'll piss off my parents.' And-." His face creases up. "And you actually want to
do that?"
"Chirurgeons used to train on corpses stolen from graveyards. I've got a ritual that requires the reasonably fresh corpse of a woman infused with demonic magic." I spread my hands out. "Not really a lot of opportunities for something like that, and I'm pretty sure that a disinterested party would consider it to be 'fucked up magic'."
He lets out a burst of decidedly unamused laughter, then shakes his head.
"Shit. What d'you even want her for?"
"Are you sure that you want to know?"
"It's got ta be something that'll piss me off, hasn't it?"
"Alright. Well, demons have no sense of morals. While humans…" I remember what state I'm in. "Are descended from people who ate the apple from the tree in the Garden of Eden and so have certain God-given moral intuitions-"
Or are descended from ape-men who gradually learned that cooperating with other ape-men improved their chances of survival.
"-demons aren't and lack that. However, demons
are capable of learning to function in human society. Most just use that knowledge to conceal their actions better, but a few make a genuine effort to fit in. One of my children's tutors is just such a demon. She's been living as a human without… Alright, not
entirely without incident, but considering what she is a couple of counts of operating an unlicensed abattoir is pretty minor."
I mean, there's no specific law
against eating puppies.
…
That I know of.
"O-okay, so, what?"
"So she got married, and she and her husband want to have children, but it turns out that's actually quite hard when your body is a manifestation of demonic energy. And because we're keeping an eye on her, she can't get away with the usual standby of possessing someone. And it turns out that isn't as easy to maintain in the long term as you might assume."
"And you want to put her in my daughter's body?"
"Yes."
"No."
"But that's not all."
"No. No."
"Okay, but you might want to-"
"
No you goddamn-"
"-consider where your daughter's soul likely ended up."
"-son of..! … The Hell you mean by
that?"
"Drugs, promiscuous sexual activity, demon magic and generally being kind of a bitch. These are not the things that lead to a glorious unification with the Source after the end of one's time in this veil of tears. Unless you're one of
my kind and have special dispensation to just be
yourself, that sort of thing results in the newly liberated soul heading straight
down."
His mouth twitches like it wants to fold down at the edges but he's
trying to keep under control. No one wants to believe that their daughter went to Hell, even if a disinterested party might look at the available evidence and say 'well, duh'.
"W-. W-? If this demon is just… Gunna be possessing her body-."
"Part of the ritual involves bringing her soul back. She won't be able to interact with the world, but she won't be enduring all of the torments of Hell any longer."
"Dear God in Heaven."
I bring my hands together in a clap.
"
So…"
"Can-? Can we think about it?"
"I'd
like to say 'yes', but the ritual has a definite deadline and we're already pushing it. We're not going to get a chance to do this again for a good long while, and that won't get Linda out of Hell."
"I don't-.
I-. …
Yes! Yes, do it."
I nod respectfully.
"Thank you. I shall trouble you no more."
I turn away and walk back through the hush tube that brought me here.
27th August 2012
11:08 GMT -7
Sunset looks up as I walk into her workroom, Linda Danver's naked corpse on a raised bier and painted in runic designs. John Constantine is still busy completing the patterns on her right leg while the prospective graftee fidgets awkwardly.
"Retrospective consent?"
I nod. "Attained. You ready, Gloria?"
Gloria doesn't look too impressed. "She doesn't look anything
like me."
I hold out my left hand to her and she hesitatingly takes it. I
focus my designs on the corpse and orange light
radiates out, moving over the deanimated flesh. Bones lengthen, skin and hair darken and her breasts swell from 'reasonably well-endowed teenager' to 'chirurgically augmented
WAG'.
"My nose does
not look like that."
"If you don't like it, having a fleshy body will mean that you can pay a man to change it. Mister Constantine?"
"All set." He steps back. "The girl's soul will power the tattoos-"
Gloria grimaces. "Tatt-?"
"-which won't be visible when they're
on,
and will hide you from anyone looking for you with magic."
I remove my left hand. "Body's all done. Sunset?"
Sunset holds up a pair of unpleasant-looking rune-inscribed brass chains. "All ready here!
Let's do some original research!"
Is this a 'Hellblazer' thing?