Chapter Seven : Smoked Mirrors
Cars passed by the window, their lights reflecting on my glasses. I leaned in, chin against my fist. The dozen conversations around me didn't really register. The air was warm, gently so, and Alf's energy levels were rapidly decreasing.
Next to him, Maria was writing something on a notepad, or rather, as I craned my neck to look, complete our morning's checklist. Museum of Natural History, check. Local park, check. Shopping mall, check. Tourist tour bus, check.
Not a bad day in the end. Second in day in Rosedale, having fun so far. Quiet city, what's with the lack of super activity.
Topping it off in a small restaurant helped, but damn, I was ready to go to bed now.
"Hello, mate, mind if I take a minute of your time?"
Any desire to go to sleep evaporated. I straightened in my seat and raised an eyebrow at the stranger. Some blond man with a long, dreary-looking trench coat. Five o'clock shadow on his face. Damn.
"Why are you dressed funny?" Alf asked, face scrunched up.
The lack of immediate reprimand from Maria showed how much on edge she felt about this.
The blonde man smiled and knelt next to Alf's seat, leaning to faux-whisper: "Well, kiddo, that's because I'm the Laughing Magician."
Oh Hell.
"Prove it," was Alf's instantaneous reply, and this time, Maria smacked his shoulder.
"You be polite, Alvaro Martinez." She turned to finally acknowledge John Constantine's presence. "So sorry. He still needs to learn when to hold his tongue."
"Oh, it's nothing. Still haven't gotten that one down myself. Hardly be right of me to blame him, right?" He rubbed his hands together, breathing on them. "Besides, my honor has been challenged, and a man never backs down from a challenge."
I barely resisted the urge to stare. Wow. He could say that with a straight face, huh? As I recalled, he had a healthy notion of his own limits and when to retreat to fight another day. Of course, he also fought back that other day, so maybe it was not a complete lie. Just a bit creative with the truth.
Unaware of my thoughts, or so I figured until he glanced my way, Constantine flipped a coin between his fingers, rolling it around his knuckles and tilting it on the edge of his skin, somehow not dropping it. Alf snorted, obviously recognizing the trick. But Constantine remained unflappable and performed his tricks until he theatrically made the coin disappear.
He reached behind Alf's ear…
Except, instead of the coin, Constantine pulled a whole roasted chicken from behind Alf's ear. They both stared completely nonplussed as the rotisserie flopped on the table.
"Okay, that's new." He rubbed his chin before turning his eyes on me with a hint of something deeper in them. "You're a funny guy, huh?"
Since I seem to have inherited my dad's sense of humor, no. "More like, impulsive."
"Always a winner when combined with cosmic powers," he snarked.
It startled a laugh out of me. Damn. Hadn't had anyone joke with me besides the Martinez for a month now.
"Not really cosmic now, is it?" I mimed pulling my hands close together. "Or our definitions of cosmos are vastly different."
"Alright, I'll give you that." He plucked a wing from the roasted chicken and squeezed in next to me on the bench. "Mind giving me a name in exchange?"
"His name is Jesús!" Alf piped up, too happy to contribute to adult talk.
"Jesus Christ, huh?" he said, with a special emphasis on 'Christ' that was close to swearing. Judging by Maria's unsubtle throat clearing, I hadn't been the only one to get that impression.
Still, I raised up my hands in defense. "I did not make that claim. Same with the Satan ones. I've no interest in stealing a name from mythology."
"I should hope not, else you'd have started pissing off a few people on the big scale. Hope you weren't expecting to win that one. The Light Bearer's the worst news in the actual universe when you piss him off. Or amuse him."
He smirked and pulled a cigarette.
"No smoking!"
"Lady-" Constantine started with a protest.
"Breath your cancer stick all you want, but not around my sons!"
Her sons? Did she just call me…? For a second, I blinked back tears, frozen in my seat. John twisted his pack through his fingers and hid it back in his trench coat. A hint of a blush colored his face a nice dark pink. Even through my shock, I had a distant thought that it kinda looked cute on his unshaven face.
"Whoa, there, Lady, I can respect a mum's love like that."
You better or I'll turn your body inside out.
Constantine glanced at me, almost as if he had sensed my thoughts.
Maybe he had.
"Our meeting is a complete coincidence, I presume," I drawled.
"Aah, none of that. You ain't buying that bollocks, I'm not gonna insult you by trying. I spent three days looking for you." He nodded towards the other side of the street. "How about we discuss it over a drink like reasonable adults?"
Maria shot us both such an unimpressed look that I flinched. For his part, John's cocksure attitude faltered a little. Alvaro, as any loyal little brother would do, chuckled at our discomfited looks.
"Yeah, alright. My ego needs to recover from that," I said, pointing a thumb in Maria's general direction. "Just give me a second to pay the waitress and I'll be with you."
"What nonsense are you on about? I can afford to feed you after all those things you've made for us." She placed a hand over my mouth to stifle any rogue protest and pushed me out of our booth. "Go, shoo. And don't come back stinking like last time!"
"See you later, Jesús." Alf waved me goodbye, and well, it seemed hard to argue past that point.
John took off towards the exit, navigating the crowded tables with ease, almost gliding. In comparison, I had the grace of a one-footed duck, apologizing twice for almost brushing against someone's back. Inevitably, I drew eyes to me, and one of them happened to be a young woman carrying two empty plates in a tray.
"Oh, Cindy, I gotta leave early, but here," I fished out three fifties out of my pocket and pressed them in her hands. "For our bill, the table with the Hispanic woman and her son," – I pointed as discreetly as possible. – "and keep the change."
"Thank you, sir," she replied, eyes wide. "Have a good evening."
I was about to wave it off politely when-
"I saw you, Corazòn!"
Refusing to look back – if I did not acknowledge her, she could not run after me to teach me about proper manners –, I stiffly made my way out, and only started breathing again when the cool evening air washed over me.
"Heaven of a woman you got looking after you," Constantine muttered as he led me across the street towards one of the pubs. "She always like that?"
"Like you lack the most basic of common sense and she prays the Lord for the strength to deal with your nonsense everyday?" I listed seriously, nodding, before breaking into a smile. "No. Only around you."
"Bullshit," he snorted, side eying me. "I think we might get along, mate. C'mon."
The door creaked as he pushed it open, wincing as old wood was to do. Greyish fumes slipped through the opening immediately, and I sighed to myself. Pure breathing.
A wise precaution, it turned out. Past the entrance where a bouncer a head taller than me grunted at Constantine, the pub reeked of old debauchery. Dark woods and crimson cushions for the chairs, all clustered around maybe twenty tables and surrounded by large booths that surveyed the room. At the counter, a black woman in her thirties filled a mug, foam dripping on the tilted side. She noticed us immediately, if her glance was any indication, but she just pushed the mugs to her customer and chased them off with a deadpan reply to their drunken flirting.
Needless to say, cigarette smoke was so thick it constituted its own meteorological phenomenon.
Half the seats had been taken. So, Constantine made the executive decision and got us two stools at the counter. Reasonably comfortable, I decided once I actually sat my ass down. But, urgh. I hated having my back to the room. Plus, my shoes dangled awkwardly above the stool's step. Just a couple of inches short.
I expected him to start talking then.
He fished a cigarette out of his trench coat. Without even looking my way, he just fumbled for his lighter, gave up, then closed one hand around his cigarette. A few sparks flew out on the first try, but a gentle flame licked the tip of his cigarette the second time around. He seemed to relax a hint more as he breathed out a small cloud of smoke to join the rest above our heads.
"Whiskey for two, love." He signed the barmaid, then shot me a slightly amused look. "Hope you like the strong stuff, mate. I'm feeling thirsty."
Not what he meant, I thought, chuckling nervously and desperately hoping I wasn't blushing. "Eh. I like it better than beer, at least."
"Now, now, don't you disparage that distilled piss. It's great for a cheap night of getting shitfaced."
"Can't argue that."
The barmaid took Constantine's offered twenties and served us both half a glass. And left the bottle. Damn. Some spicy smell tickled my nose. Coarse, with a faint hint of something sweet under it all. A spark of want flashed through my guts. Should I really get somewhat drunk around a guy I only vaguely recalled as a Noir novel protagonist archetype though? Rugged, rough around the edge, heart of gold, but with tragedy in his wake.
Oh whatever, I thought as I took the first sip of my drink. Not like he could do anything anyway.
The heat was pleasant, even if the alcohol's strength pulled a grimace out of me. Then a slight shudder. Damn. Reminded me of the whiskey my cousin used in his smoking recipe.
I took a moment to just listen to the sounds around us. Constantine's deeper inhales every time he sucked in his nicotine. Scratchy voices echoed from the speakers, wailing on the loneliness of a night away from home. Glass clinking on tables and people bursting into laughter in the booth in the corner. Early night, the sad lost ones hadn't come out of hiding yet.
Unless Constantine and I counted.
"So? We're here, being manly and contemplating our drinks with the melancholy of much older souls. I'd say we should play pool, but I suck at it. Confession time?"
"Aye, aye, impatient grasshopper. You see, I owe the grim wanker a little favor, and he decided to cash in. Sounded a little freaked, as far as you can tell with him. Apparently, some big mystic game showed up in his neighborhood and made a bloody mess of his things."
I rolled my eyes. "Like he owns a city of thirty million souls."
"You protect something, you start getting attached to it."
I pulled a soft smile at that. Touché.
"So, what does he want?" I asked, focusing on the TV screen on our right. Replays of a football game. "I'm not restoring Poison Ivy's powers. She's an eco-terrorist. Enough said."
"Not gonna argue that. Neither will he." Constantine ignored my skeptical look and stubbed his cigarette in the ashtray. "Bats' a bit of a bleeding heart, but he's also pretty ruthless when the mood calls for it. Right now, he just wants answers about you."
"Like?"
With a sleight of hands, he swapped his empty glass for a full one. "Mostly? What are you and what can you do?"
"Too bad for him. He's gonna be disappointed." A hint of something dangerous flickered through Constantine's eyes. "Even if I wanted to, I couldn't tell him the first thing about me."
Constantine looked a little too flabbergasted to me. "Now, that's something I didn't see coming. You don't know?"
I leaned on the counter a bit more, resting my chin on my arms. "Not a clue."
"Well, you don't have a harp or a pitchfork, so I guess we can rule out two of my first guesses." He lifted one of the bar's candle and lifted it up my eyes. Before I could ask him what he was doing, he tried to widen my eye like some weird medieval optometrist. "Doesn't seem possessed either. Shame. I do great exorcisms."
I suddenly had a vivid image of oily black fingers crawling out of my throat.
I clanked my empty glass on the counter too strongly, and the barmaid sent me a warning look. 'Sorry' I mouthed at her.
"So, we've ruled out angels and demons, huh?" I called for a beer. "You mind telling Alvaro that? Brat refuses to believe me when I say otherwise."
"Hold up, mate. We still gotta think this through. There's always the possibility of an amnesiac god."
Alright. This was the DC universe. And there was all sorts of crazy crap happening every day. Literally. Every. Day. But I still could not help my flat tone as I repeated "An amnesiac god. I don't have amnesia."
"That's what they all say. Have you recently punished a mortal disproportionately for something most modern day people would call a minor inconvenience?"
I had punished three hostage takers lightly, vanished the Joker and depowered a bunch of insane murderous rogues. Hardly the realm of condemning someone to a slow death for saying they were prettier than me. "The B-man's given you the scoop, didn't he?"
"Right, right, but it's been like, a week and a half since you left? Now, be honest, kid. Did you change that jackass at the gas station into a cactus?"
"Nope."
"Well, he would have bloody deserved it," he snarled in his whiskey. "Fucking arsehole."
I snorted into my beer. Ah, shit. Up my nose. Had bubbles burning up my nose hair and foam dripping down my nostrils. Made my eyes water. With a thought, I conjured up a bunch of napkins to dry my face.
"I should send you to Tartarus for that," I growled, failing to keep a grin on my face.
"Can you?"
"Probably not." I hadn't tried. Opening a portal to Hell in any shape or form was about as dumb as it got. "Couldn't you tell? I mean, I haven't put up an anti-magic field yet, but surely you can tell the difference."
"Mhmm, true. Felt like I stepped in some god's bloody bedroom."
I blinked and blushed. That sounded oddly… intimate. Shit. Was I mystically flashing all the magicians I crossed path with? "Seriously? That's the best analogy you could come up with?"
Constantine looked me up and down, seemingly clueless. Yeah, I didn't buy that. I could see the corner of his mouth quirking. "What are you getting worked up about?"
A croak rose from the back of my throat, which I promptly drowned under a generous swing of beer. "Nevermind. Not important. So, you think I'm some… what, a new god?"
"It's a possibility. Could be something else too. Lots of big powers in our universe, mate."
"That's fine. I don't make it a habit of looking for trouble. I'm just vaguely aware of magic in general and I don't intend to dabble with dark forces. Or, you know, meet the proverbial bigger fish."
"Wise policy. Too bad it usually doesn't mean shit in this world. They gotta eat at some point."
I deliberately tried to not picture a giant fish eating the Earth. It was both silly and a little terrifying.
"Fine, so you have an idea of what I can be. That good enough?"
"It'd be best if I had an idea of your limits." He poured me another glass of whiskey. Sly bastard.
Nice liquor though. Damn. "My 'bedroom'. There, you have it. It's basically the only thing of significance."
"Bullshit. Magic has a price, even for gods."
"Dunno 'bout that. Am I even doing magic? Is this just ESP or a really strange mutation? Maybe I'm just a sapient part of the universe that went a little nuts."
I brought my fingers together and stared. Stared hard at the point they met. Would it… would there be a god there, living amongst bacteria and warping space and time around itself? Was it how it started?
Constantine's hand gripped my wrist, and he was looking a little pale as he spoke. With a forced look, he nodded towards the pool table. "Let's."
I let out a groan. "I said I suck at it." But I was letting him pull me away from the counter anyway.
I staggered a bit on the first step, and bumped into a wooden chair that I was sure I had avoided entirely. Maybe those drinks were getting to me a bit more than I had thought. John's hand helped keep me steady enough to reach the table.
The room wasn't spinning, but that might owe to the fact that I gripped the edges tightly.
A hand tapped me on the shoulder, gently.
"Up yours, mate," John said, holding up a cue with a shit-eating grin.
My competitive spirit flared up. None too steadily, I snatched the cue. While I had been getting my balance back, the bastard had set the table. All the balls had been aligned, including the white one.
"Aah, what set of rules?"
"You're already shit-faced?" He chuckled, not quite in disbelief. "Mate, you'd overdose on ambrosia."
"Noted. Rules?"
"Well, let's make it simple. First one to pocket a ball gets all the ones of that set. You can keep playing as long as you pocket at least one ball per hit. No order. Just all of them in before you can try the eight ball. If you miss that one, you lose. Got it all down, love?"
I shrugged. Honestly, I'd ask if I needed to. Expert Skills.
He broke. The balls sadly rolled across the mat, spreading all over the table, but none fell into the holes. John looked approximately not bothered at all, and stepped back a bit.
"Your turn."
My body moved by itself, with little thought on my end, just the practiced motion of an experienced player. The cue slid easily between my fingers and taped the ball at just the right angle. It sped off past the eight ball, less than an inch from a game-losing impact, and hit a cluster dead on. Amongst them, a purple ball took off towards' the left corner hole.
Okay, so next one will be-
The ball stopped just short of the hole. It oscillated, almost tipping over, but ultimately, stayed right on the edge.
I swallowed my shock. "Wha- oh, right," I grumbled, "a little shitfaced." Guess even experts stumble when they're tipsy. Stupid crap. Whatever. Better than I would have done before anyway.
John positioned himself and leaned, cue in hand. I stepped to the side, not eying his buttock very long, because that was the way to perdition, but, yeah, maybe I noticed a little.
He hit, pocketed one ball, then missed the next shot. Barely.
It left me in an awkward spot. Half surrounded. Metaphors and all that.
"The kid's necklace. His mum's bracelet." John listed, not taking his eyes off the game. "What did you even do? It's like someone fired up a lighthouse in a black room."
Embers lit the tip of his cigarette, burned with a hint of blue throughout the red.
"Gave them every protection I could think of." On top of me just plain making them personally immune to every form of harm imaginable. Just in case either trinket fails.
Pocketed one. Missed the next shot.
"Put a target on their back is what you did," John mumbled, polishing the tip of his cue.
"The mere fact that we spend time together is a bigger danger than anything else I could have done. It would have been stupid to just hope they would never be hurt because I was around."
After a moment, John tilted his head back and gulped his drink in one go. "I can relate to that."
On the TV, one of the teams scored a point or something. The crowd within cheered loudly, and one man at a table whooped, only for his pal to tell him it was a replay and smack him back in his seat.
John aligned himself with the nine ball and hit.
I downed my mug. It didn't burn nearly as bad as before. Just nice warmth spreading through my chest. Just a little easier on my mind.
"I made all three of us blurry, y'know? Like, the way they remember. No one has a clue who we are."
"For most people, that's true. But for those involved in the mystic arts, high and low, it's a bit hard to miss the blazing inferno moving through the countryside. Leylines have been going out of whack. It wasn't much when Gotham's did, because not even Hell knows what that mess even is, but now that you're on the move, it's certainly a bit easier to track you."
He pocketed the ten and eleven balls in one shot. After the white ball had come to a halt, he leaned over the table, most of his frame hidden by his trench coat. And, there, peaking out of an inner pocket, I could see a scrap of paper with a blood red pentagram drawn on.
It sort of clicked.
"Wait, are there demons in this bar? Right… right now?" I asked with a bit of a slur. "Why didn't you warn me?"
John looked amused. The piece of shit. "Thought you knew? In hindsight, probably should have figured the second you said you had no clue."
Ball thirteen, in.
"I just told you I don't look for trouble. Any of them good?"
"You don't exactly get 'nice' from demons, mate. Can keep 'em on a leash if you're smart, but most are horrible. Torture is the most common hobby amongst them for a reason."
"That's the plan for tonight too?"
He saw my expression. "Huh, mate, that's not a good i-"
Too late. Pure white flames engulfed two men paying a young woman a drink. Their shrieks of agony turned into monstrous roars as their shadowed outlines grew twofolds, horns and claws and wings bursting out of their disguises. The next moment, they were ashes.
And not one human reacted, besides Constantine. The woman blinked, glanced around herself, then shrugged and finished her martini.
"Bloody Hell, mate!" the Laughing Magician hissed. "D-did you just purify two high-end demons without looking?"
"You tell me. Are they dead?"
"As my old nan. You're a little scary, I'll give you that." He leaned back with a put-upon sigh. "Mind you, I deal with scarier every other day, but fuck me, you actually bypass the price of magic in here?"
"Wasn't even aware there was one. I had a vague inkling, but that's mostly how these things go. Power is never free. And often, the power that seems free cost the most."
"Speaking from experience, I see," John smirked.
"Not really." I rested my head against my palm and struggled not to let my eyelids close. Trick shot. "There's nothing to complain about, when it comes to my power. Watch."
Head light, fingers shaking, I pushed the cue in the most awkward, diagonal angle possible.
The white ball leaped over one of John's and collided against the top of the green six, which stumbled into the right side hole.
The white ball, however, ricocheted off the corner, hit the blue ball, bounced to the red one and sent them both falling into the opposite corners.
Pure bullshit, s'what it was. But I hadn't even changed physics. Just made myself that skilled with no effort. By all means, it shouldn't have worked.
"You're in over your head."
"I'm all but invincible. Sure, it's a small radius in the grand scheme of things, but it's not like I ever leave that radius. It's probably part of me. I don't really have anything to worry about."
Clear blue eyes pinned me in place, suddenly laser-focused on me, suddenly so hard that I felt the urge to peer down at my glass and shrink on myself.
"This is the third time you said 'I'm all but invincible'," John said, steel in his voice. "The radius thing is new, though."
… what?
"No, it wasn't." I shot a mournful look to the bottom of my empty bottle. "'M not that drunk."
John snapped his fingers.
My stomach dropped further and further through my body as my own voice echoed in stereo. "I'm all but invincible," it said, but with different rhythm, with slur on the different syllables. One even ended four seconds after the other two.
I blinked. I wasn't looking right. Three ghostly afterimages of John, all pasted on top of one another. The barmaid was walking around behind her counter in a sort of glitched loop, as did her customers, the players on the screen. I fought the strangest feeling of my eyes showing me a badly buffering video.
I looked down at the table.
The red ball was back in front of the hole.
Electrizing fear rushed through my veins, as my mind finally caught up with what he had meant.
Complete immunity to mind alterations!
"Ah, there it goes." John drawled. "Much better, kid. Well, much is a slight overstatement. You ain't used to dealing with my sort, are you?"
I took a second to calm down my own heartbeat. Okay. Okay, gotten a little bit too sure of myself, huh? How did I even know it hadn't been a trick? How was that not considered harm? I already had protection against mind control?! How did he-? Focus. What time is it?
I subtly glanced down at my watch. Nine twenty. We would have been here for half an hour now. What we'd talked about so far, the game, would it have taken forty minutes?
John, that singular ass, lifted an eyebrow as a silent question. He exuded an aura of smugness. It really was a shame it made him a bit hotter. Fuck me.
I pressed my forehead against my cue, groaning. "So, besides the memory loophole, what else?"
"Who am I? Your mum?" He hid his smirk with his glass, swirling whiskey under his nose. "Figure them out for yourself."
I stared for a second, jaw hanging in disbelief. "Bastard."
"It's what I do. And I'm good at it."
"You're good at making your face punchable." I could. I could definitely get one over him. Materialize a bucket of ice cold water over his head or something.
Unless, of course, one of those loopholes I was missing would allow him to work around it. Immunity to magic. Immunity to mystic arts. Just, fucking immunity to everything. Subtlety can suck it. Curse bouncer.
"Ah, what can I say? Genetics an' all. I'm descended from a long line of gods-punter."
Okay, okay, so I start with the ice cold bucket, then a mime that eloquently mimes 'go fuck yourself' and pies him. "So very punchable," I gritted through my teeth.
"Hey, you made it easy. Things you wanna forget, mate?"
I glared, but inside, I was recoiling as some of those memories chose precisely that moment to resurface. Flashes of sensation. People clinging. Screaming in my face. Begging. 'I'll do anything' Hands fiddling with my zipper, shoved in my pants, and a flicker of arousal before disgust and shame overcame it.
Yelling in the sewers, flashlights illuminating damp tunnels behind me. A dagger piercing through my abdomen. Warmth leaking out of my chest.
His face, gaunt, so gaunt it seemed hollow, caving on itself. I could only make out his eyes, bloodshot grey eyes, twitching with a sort of nervous madness.
Then, once more, his eyes, blank, glazed over, looking up at me from the ground. His expression twisted in pain.
I asked everything to stop.
"I tried." My glass whined under dangerous pressure. "Didn't really work. They just come back eventually. Even if I force it. It's like any other memory. It's gone until it's not, and then it's all you can think of."
John hummed.
All of a sudden, I really did not want to hear his silence anymore. "What would you do with unlimited power at no cost?"
He paused. For a split second, he looked entirely sober, and his gaze went to empty air. "… Fix a bunch of old mistakes, for one," he mumbled. "Then, I dunno, go kick the asses of a few people upstairs and downstairs for stress relief. After that though, I guess I'd just do more of the same. Help people and bend over the things that hide in the dark."
My heart pummeled down to my feet. Right. Why did I talk to superheroes again?
"Imagine you were in my shoes." I sighed. "Just another random civilian going about his daily life, no grand ambition, no dark tragedies, nothing. One night goes to bed, one morning wakes up in another dimension. Now imagine that landing point was Gotham and that you had no money, no papers, nothing, really. Heck, even the accent is a bit confusing at times."
"You're telling me," he drawled, with a much thicker accent than before. God, what an arsehole!
"And then, you find out that you have power the likes of which you could have only dreamed of once." That you had dreamed of. "What's the first thing you think I tried, once the dust settled?"
John made a disgruntled noise in the back of his throat. His brows lowered, a little. Didn't seem all that amused anymore. "You're stuck, huh?"
"Yep." I chirped. "Tried everything that came to mind. Tore a few holes in space, build portal machines, looked up displacement spells. Funny thing is, they worked. They all worked."
"Hu-uh." He glanced me up and down.
"With everyone, except me." Shit, I needed more whiskey. Aaaaand, my glass obligingly refilled itself. Nice. "Just got left standing stupidly in the same spot whilst the rats all appeared on the other side of town. Least they weren't my problem anymore."
"I think I heard enough about you to know that's not really true."
"F-fuck off," I scoffed. "They're rats. Not interdimensional plaguemongers. Whoever got them can deal. Could. It was like a month ago now." Unless it was some restaurant that got closed down for insalu- SHUT UP, CONSCIENCE!
Blinking heavily, I let out a few curses to try and evacuate the surge of pissed-off energy in my blood. With an angry snort, I slammed the cue down on the table and went back to the counter. He'd made his points. And he'd cheated anyway.
"Do you still believe I'm some sort of menace?" I grimaced, spinning on my seat to glare back. "Are ye convinced? How threatenin' d'you think I am?"
"Honestly, mate, I'm just waiting for the alcohol-induced stupidity to happen aaaany second now. And hoping it won't be more than fireworks."
I'll show him stupid. "Here." I mimed tossing something, and John mimed catching it. "In return for not fucking me over worse than you did."
He didn't flinch when a little cardboard box materialized in the palm of his hand. He did cocked an eyebrow at me though. "Already got a pack, but thanks, love."
"Self-refilling?" I said with a shit-eating grin. "And, y'know, not cancer inducing?"
With a look of intense curiosity, John turned the pack upside down. A good twenty cigarettes dropped on the counter in a pile. Then another twenty. Smirking, he snuck me a roguish look and twirled his fingers just above the cigarettes. Under them, a golden tear in space opened, and his loot disappeared within. By the time the barmaid had come back over, there was no evidence of his prestidigitation.
"While you're at it, feel like working that magic on a bottle?" He shook the nearly empty whiskey bottle we had been sharing. "It's hardly fair to only indulge one of my inner demons. Poor bastards'll get jealous."
Though luck. "Eh, how about I take the tab the next time we talk?"
Pocketing my gift, John rested an elbow on the counter and leaned a little. "A couple of favors like that, and I'll start thinking you want me in your bed."
God, I wish, I thought. "Wouldn't say no," my mouth replied.
John's smugness reached critical levels.
I could have melted an iceberg with my face. Damnit, Whiskey! I trusted you! "Can you erase that from both our memories?"
"Hell no. I'll immortalize it in a charm just so I can keep you on the backfoot."
He went to take another sip, but this time, a bucketfull of ice cold water drenched him from head to toes. The mime followed suit with the cream pie.