From an outside point of view, it looked like a normal cemetery at night.
Sure, there was a crimson moon present for all to see and sure heavy fog had rolled in but beside that it was a normal cemetery.
And it that completely normal cemetery a strange women walked by a dead tree were two decaying corpses hung. From above a raven flew down, landing on the shoulder of one of the corpses and began to pluck several pieces of carrion. All the while the woman watched and nodded in approval before walking past.
She was an attractive, pale skinned woman of average height who appeared to be in her 20's, she had dark eyes and long jet-black hair. The woman wore a black tank top and a pair of black tights which was finished off by a leather jacket and a top hat
The two details that stuck out the most however was the silver ankh she wore around her neck and the Eye of Horus that was directly under one of her eyes
The woman walked through the desolate land that only harboured dead plant life with a smile and a slight hum. Her smile brightened when she reached her location.
It was a hole 6 feet deep with a shovel and a pile of dirt besides it.
"Are you still asleep?" The woman spoke out as she walked a few steps closer and looked inside.
At the bottom was an open casket that held a body. He was a dark-skinned man in his early to mid-20s with broad shoulders. The man was dressed in a high-quality suit and on his chest, a singular black rose was placed.
"Huh?" The woman tilted her head when she noticed the unresponsive body. She looked at her wrist, staring at an imaginary watch, "It should be right about now…"
In that moment the man's eyes open, they briefly examined his surroundings before locking on to the woman who stood above him. The man closed his eyes and took a deep breath and then released it, he did this exercise several times before he finally opened his mouth to speak.
And well…
"FUCK!"
He looked up to see the woman smiling at him and he growled, "Stop laughing."
"I'm not laughing." The woman raised her hand in surrender, but the shit eating grin told him all he needed to know.
"Fuck," The man repeated once again however this time it lacked the rage it previously had.
The woman leaned down and offered her hand, "So, how did it go?"
The man raised a brow as he took the woman's hand and was pulled out the hole. "You know exactly how it went; you always know."
"True," The woman nodded as she led the man through the graveyard. It was dead in every single way that mattered, the soil was dried up and hard with visible cracks running through, the tombstones were all crumbling slowly with bits and pieces of rock falling every now and then. From the corner of his eyes the man could see wandering silhouettes that were hidden in the fog. He didn't know what they were, but he didn't bother questioning it simply because that was not the strangest thing he had seen here.
"However just because I know what happened doesn't mean I don't want to hear it from you. I need to get your thoughts and opinions; I need to understand how you view what happened. That's why I want you to tell me." She spun around as she answered back.
"Honestly, that seems pointless." The man said.
"I mean what else are we supposed to talk about?" She shrugged.
The man thought for a moment. In truth he didn't have to be here, the moment he arrived nothing stopped him from just leaving again. He knew that and the woman knew that, but it seemed to be an unspoken agreement between the two that they needed to talk whenever he arrived.
He stuck to the agreement because he felt obligated to. She had helped him out when she didn't have to so he felt that he at least owed her moments of his time.
He also knew the reason why she stuck to the unspoken agreement.
She can get quite lonely.
"I won…" The man started out but was stopped when the woman shook her head.
"Nope. If you had won, you wouldn't be here now, would you?" She said with her usual coy smile.
The man scowled but quickly corrected himself, "I almost won."
"But you didn't, plus we both know that it was through complete luck."
"But I didn't." The man reaffirmed with sunken shoulders,
"Hey, at least now you know what has been killing you. That's a saving grace." They walked past a decomposing body that had maggots and other miscellaneous insects crawling inside the body's open mouth. Some crawled in through the still open eyes while others simply ate their way inside.
"Oh yeah, I'm supper grateful to know that it's been John fucking Constantine killing me, that information is so reassuring." The man kicked a peddle and watched with apathy as it hit a tombstone. It was so fragile that all it took was a single pebble to destroy it. "You should do this more often; I'm sure others would love your reassurances."
"Being snarky with me won't help your case you know that right?" She spun around and turned to face him while walking backwards
"I know," He answered dejected. "I could really use some suggestions right about now."
"Only if you ask nicely." The man scoffed but when he noticed the look sent his way, he realized that the woman was serious.
The man gave a mocking bow, "Please assist this foolish one, your majesty. Share with me your profane knowledge."
The woman held her chin and hummed in contemplation, "I don't know, I'm going to need more than that..."
"How about a date?" The man offered with a cocksure grin.
"I'd rather die." The woman said with a haughty look.
The man stumbled back with a pained grimace as he gripped his shirt, "I felt that."
"You see the joke there is that I actually can't die"
The man shook his head in mild amusement, "Explaining your own jokes? You really have hit rock bottom." His face grew more serious as he stared intensely at the at the woman, "But I seriously do need your help. No matter what I do I can't seem to beat the bastard. He never confronts me directly, opting to use curses and summons. I have no counter measure nor do have any fire power, and could someone explain to me why the hell John Constantine to hunting me across Gotham?"
Ahead of them was a dead, withered tree no different to all the rest but instead of a corpse hanging from its branches it had a old swing made from a piece of dry wood and some rope. The woman's eyes light up as she ran towards the swing forcing the man to chase after her.
"Push me," She ordered with a mischievous glint in her eyes. The man sighed but complied, nonetheless. "I don't understand why you are this surprised, your arrival to this universe wasn't exactly subtle. Predetermined fates that once seemed set in stone are now constantly fluctuating. My Brother Destiny has gone schizophrenic now that his book stopped working properly and that's not mentioning the countless cosmic being that got attracted to earth because of your soul."
The man froze at the last part while the woman grumbled once he stopped swinging her.
"What do you mean because of my soul?"
"Any decently powerful god could take one look at your soul and know that you aren't meant to exist. It gives off something of a frequency that's far too foreign to this universe. You're a living paradox Samuel; you are not meant to exist and yet you do. It's how I found you in the first place, I'm there for the birth of every soul and yet you were one I wasn't familiar with."
The man, Samuel's eyes twitched in annoyance as he gritted his teeth, "And you didn't think to tell me that my soul is a supernatural beacon."
The woman turned around and flicked the man's forehead, "Because it stopped being an issue once, we made the deal. I'm actively keeping it hidden."
"So why is Constantine hunting me?"
The woman shrugged, "My guess is that it's at the behest of another. Only a cosmic being would understand your significance."
"I thought you were keeping me safe." Samuel as he continued pushing the woman on the swing.
"Keeping you safe is a bit misleading. What I'm doing is suppressing your soul, think of it as diming the brightness but that doesn't mean that the uniqueness has vanished it just means that hunting you is far harder."
"Not hard enough apparently" Samuel knew the type of person John Constantine was, the bastard had a long list of outstanding debts to a lot of supernatural creatures who were mostly malevolent by nature. It wasn't that hard to imagine that one of them would approach Constantine with an offer he couldn't refuse.
'Find the soul and wipe away your debt'
The woman sighed as she too up from the swing, "Look you know that I'll do my best to help you but there's only so much I can do. The rest falls on you" she turned to him, smiled and waved "Now go to sleep"
Samuel's eyes widened once he realized what was going to happen, "You are unbelievable" He muttered as his eyes grew heavy and his feet staggered, before long he found his body hitting the ground hard as darkness took him.
The last thing he heard was her reassuring voice," Don't worry Samuel. I know you'll do great"
____________________________________________________________________________________
He was woken up by the obnoxious sound of his alarm ringing.
He slowly rose up from his incredibly uncomfortable bed and walked to the only window in the room.
He looked out his window to the familiar sight of broken pavements, and steam rising from sewer grates. "If there ever was hell on earth, Gotham would be the place" Samuel said as he grimaced once the faint smell of sewage reached his nose
"Here we go again."