Hellblazer 1 - War Lord

Englishman and amoral occultist John Constantine has been out of sorts lately, disconnected from himself . . . and this time not from another bender, but quite literally, as his soul is cast adrift during a fouled-up spiritual quest in an Iranian monastery. Now rescued and recruited by an agent for the Hidden World—the supernatural realm that exists far beyond everyday mortal awareness—Constantine and his extraordinary allies are forcibly dragged into a globe-spanning conspiracy. For the secret cabal known as the Servants of Transfiguration has set in motion a horrifying plot to raise the ancient demon god known as the War Lord—and bring about a last great war that will annihilate everything on Earth . . .

CONSTANTINE SAW IT THEN: A DUN-COLORED GUNSHIP, COMING IN LOW OVER THE FIELDS, ITS ROTORS A GLIMMER IN THE FIRELIGHT.

It slowed to hover over what remained of the camp, and in a flash of gunfire from below, Constantine thought he saw a small glassy something thrown from a window of the chopper. A moment later there came an upburst of yellow smoke or powder, spreading out in the rotor wash.

What was it? Constantine wondered. Gas warfare? Smokescreen?

Then he saw a curious thing. The billowing smoke—visible in the light from a burning tent near the chopper—was forming into a specific shape, an enormous head that kept reasserting its shape on the smoke, as if the head were made of a clear crystal and the smoke was filling the transparent vessel from within. The head—bigger than the helicopter—turned this way and that, a face like a viciously feral Neanderthal, but with spikes in place of fur on its head, and great interlacing tusks. Hadn’t he seen that face somewhere—in some temple painting? He didn’t think so. Yet it looked so familiar. Strangely familiar . . .

An
Original
Publication of POCKET BOOKS

A Pocket Star Book published by
POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

Copyright © 2006 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

JOHN CONSTANTINE: HELLBLAZER and all related titles, characters, and elements are trademarks of DC Comics.

www.dccomics.com

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

ISBN: 1-4165-0343-9

First Pocket Books paperback edition February 2006

Manufactured in the United States of America

It’s inside me. I keep trying to kill it. But it just won’t die

—Jamie Delano,
Hellblazer
#34

From the Servants of Transfiguration

Dossier on John Constantine

Top Clearance: Eyes Only

John Constantine, a working-class British magus, is rumored to be a magical adept by some, a con man by others. He may or may not be problematic to the SOT. He was born in 1953 in Liverpool (making him a “Scouse”) to a family that can be charitably called “working class,” and this class association has marked his personal style. According to hospital records he was a twin, but his brother was born dead, asphyxiated by an anomalous loop of umbilicus. The magical symbolism of this seems ambiguous, to say the least. Additionally, Constantine’s mother died in childbirth. His father, Thomas Constantine, apparently blamed the infant JC for this. Thomas was incarcerated for stealing women’s underwear, at which time the boy and his sister were sent to live with an aunt and uncle, a rather troublesome pair, in Northampton. John Constantine’s relationships with family members have been rocky at best.

In 1967, he was expelled from school. Eventually he moved to Fortobello, London, where he was involved in some of the more extemporaneous “rock and roll” scenes extant at the time. Constantine is reported to have had scores of occult adventures—possibly
misadventures
is a better term—but our researchers find it difficult to separate out fact from legend. It does appear that Constantine had a particularly nasty interaction with a demon invoked at Newcastle, leading to an extended sojourn in Ravenscar mental hospital. Despite the notorious sadism of Ravenscar’s staff, he seems to have emerged from the hospital with his sanity largely restored, all things being relative.

Constantine seems to be almost entirely without conventional financial support. We have no record of his taking money for an occult investigation or activity. He appears to make some of his very modest living through supernaturally enhanced gambling.

Our researchers are unable to discover precisely when and where Constantine learned about the Hidden World and gained a proficiency in ritual magic. We note a number of Constantine’s ancestors with a reputation for the supernatural (see SOT files,
The Inquisition),
hence he may have inherited some magical ability. He also seems to have actively explored the supernatural from fairly early in childhood, quite on his own initiative. As an adult, he may well have had inspiration from some other well-known figures in the uncanny realm, including the voodoo priest known as “Papa Midnite” (see dossier entry, “Papa Midnite: An authentic personage”). There are rumors that Constantine was involved with the (mythical?) elemental known as the “Swamp Thing.”

His abilities are not known for certain, but John Constantine is understood to be capable of limited telepathy, precognition, astral projection, and the successful invocation of elementals, demons, and angels. There are persistent tales of his having visited Hell itself, somehow walking away more or less intact. However, he does not seem to have been allied with Hell’s supervisory denizens, nor is he regarded as a diabolist. Indeed, in recent years Constantine has been known to seek out white-magic spiritual adepts in a bid for improved control over his abilities.

Constantine has his weaknesses, including bouts of drunkenness, but is to be regarded as a dangerous adversary. He is not without allies and is influential amongst aficionados of so-called “chaos magick.” E.g., there are at least two “alternative Tarot” decks which include an image of John Constantine as one of the face cards.

SOT operatives interacting with Constantine should keep in mind that he is cunning and treacherous. Our psych profile on him suggests that he is not without loyalty and some peculiar code of ethics evolved according to his own lights. Unfortunately we have no reason to believe his loyalty could ever extend to the SOT. He must be regarded as a loose cannon, at best.

If the opportunity arises, John Constantine’s elimination would be advisable.

1

THE FOXES HAVE HOLES AND THE BIRDS OF THE AIR HAVE NESTS . . .

London, England

G
ood to be back in London—especially on a Friday night: a crisp night in April, it is, near the Thames. I feel people streaming through the city, coming up from the Underground like bubbles in a boiling teapot; they’re joined by people moving singly from shops and office buildings, to become part of a living torrent that breaks into thousands of rivulets finding their way to parties and computer cafés and nightclubs; people migrating to the cinema, people going to watch a match on telly with their friends—most important, people going down the local for a pint.

That’s where I’m headed. It’s a relief to be a faceless part of the stream, just another one of the excited particles in the solution, volatile with social chemistry, economic heat. But not much economic heat, me. Not sure I’ve got the dosh in my pocket for a drink—I reckon one of me mates will buy, at The Cutter—they’ll stand me a pint and something decent in the way of a smoke, Bob’s your uncle. Someone I know’s sure to be there. I can feel them there—though I’m still a block away. I can feel a couple of old friends and others I know who never trusted me, rightly so.

Must lock down the old intuition. If I let myself feel too much I’ll start to see things—those other things. Glimpses come: I see people from earlier times, in Edwardian dress; in Regency; in the togs of King James’s time and Elizabethan too; pasty white or apple-cheeked they are, all mingled, now, with a modern crowd. Round here there’re as many dark-skinned blokes from Pakistan and North Africa as the old Anglo-Saxon-Norman-Celt genetic hodgepodge . . . Dogcarts and carriages translucently overlapping with delicately off-gassing smart cars and big black exhaust-flatulent taxis and great hulking chrome lorries . . . antique tarts mingling with modern: is that James Boswell leering at a tom as she lifts her dress in a reeking doorway?

Don’t know if the anachronisms are ghosts, or a gander through time. Don’t care, don’t want to see them at all.

I twitch my attention back onto the impulses from this time: John Constantine’s twenty-first-century London . . .

But sometimes I miss London 1979, strutting in punk regalia on Carnaby Street, telling the old Swinging London types to sod off—now there was energy, there was life, because life doesn’t sustain itself without rebellion. But this, now, this twenty-first-century polyglot parade, this’ll do. It’s full of vital cultural crosscurrents and it’s what the big kaleidoscope of time has shifted me to and you’ve got to just look at the kaleidoscope and fancy them colors . . .