Chapter 3: An Unholy Alliance

The story came out in fragments, like pulling shards of glass from a wound that had never properly healed. Constantine sat in his threadbare armchair, smoking cigarette after cigarette, while Peter and Nightingale listened to a tale that grew more horrifying with each revelation.

"Newcastle, 1979," Constantine began, his voice flat and clinical. "I was young, arrogant, and convinced I was the smartest bastard in any room. There was a girl—Astra Logue, nine years old. Sweet kid, but she had what you might call a sensitivity to the supernatural. Her father had been dabbling in things he shouldn't have, and it left her vulnerable."

He paused to light another cigarette, and Peter noticed his hands were steadier now than they'd been during the fight. Pain, it seemed, Constantine could handle better than uncertainty.

"There was a creature terrorizing the city. A fear demon, feeding off children's nightmares. The local authorities were useless—how do you arrest something that doesn't technically exist? So they called in the cavalry: me and a few other practitioners who thought we could handle it."

"What went wrong?" Nightingale asked, though his tone suggested he already suspected.

"Everything." Constantine's laugh was bitter. "We cornered the demon at the Casanova Club—a seedy little establishment where the desperate went to forget their problems. I had this brilliant plan, you see. Instead of just banishing the thing, I thought I could bind it, control it, use it as a weapon against bigger threats."

Peter felt a chill that had nothing to do with the damaged heating system. "You tried to make a deal."

"Worse. I tried to summon something even more powerful to force the demon into submission. Nergal—a Duke of Hell, older than human civilization. I thought I could negotiate with him, that my binding circle was strong enough to contain him."

The silence stretched uncomfortably. Finally, Nightingale spoke. "But it wasn't."

"The circle held, barely. But Nergal... he was cleverer than I gave him credit for. He couldn't break the binding directly, so he went after the weakest link in the chain. Astra was there, you see. I'd brought her along because I thought she could help identify the demon's presence. A nine-year-old girl, and I put her in the middle of a summoning circle with a Duke of Hell."

Constantine's cigarette had burned down to his fingers, but he didn't seem to notice. "Nergal couldn't leave the circle, but he could take something with him when he went back. He grabbed Astra's soul and dragged it into Hell while I stood there with my mouth hanging open, too shocked to even try to stop him."

"Jesus," Peter breathed.

"Jesus had nothing to do with it," Constantine said harshly. "That was all me. My arrogance, my stupidity, my failure. A little girl is spending eternity in Hell because I thought I was clever enough to cheat the Devil."

Nightingale had been quiet throughout the story, but now he leaned forward. "And you believe this is connected to the current deaths?"

"I know it is." Constantine stood abruptly, moving to a locked cabinet. Inside, Peter caught a glimpse of items that made his skin crawl—bones carved with symbols, bottles filled with unidentifiable liquids, and things that seemed to shift and writhe when he wasn't looking directly at them.

Constantine pulled out a leather journal, its pages yellow with age. "I've been tracking Nergal for three decades, trying to find a way to get Astra back. He's been using her soul as a power source, feeding off her pain and innocence to fuel his workings in the mortal world."

He opened the journal to a page covered with diagrams and cramped handwriting. "But six months ago, something changed. The magical signature I'd been following—Nergal's fingerprint, if you will—started to fragment. As if something was tearing pieces off it."

"The corrupted vestigia," Peter said, understanding dawning. "What we've been finding at the death scenes."

"Exactly. Something is stealing power from Nergal's workings, using Astra's soul to create new forms of supernatural predator. The Sorrow-Wraith we just fought is just the beginning."

Peter studied the diagram more closely. The mathematical relationships were familiar—the same underlying structure that governed all British magical practice—but twisted into forms that hurt to contemplate. "This is based on Newtonian principles, but perverted. Like someone took a symphony and played it backwards through a broken gramophone."

"Someone who knew our magical traditions intimately," Nightingale added grimly. "Someone who understood the theoretical framework well enough to corrupt it."

Constantine nodded. "Which brings us to our real problem. Nergal might be a bastard, but he's a predictable bastard. He follows rules, even if they're not rules we like. But this new player? They're creating chaos magic with the power of Hell behind it. And every death, every Sorrow-Wraith they create, makes them stronger."

The house shuddered again, and Peter felt that familiar tingle at the base of his skull. But this time, it wasn't an attack—it was a warning. Something vast and hungry was stirring in the darkness beneath Newcastle, and it was finally ready to show itself.

"We need to stop them," Peter said. "Before they—"

His words were cut off as the windows exploded inward. But instead of another shadowy creature, what came through was something far worse: a wave of pure, concentrated despair that hit all three men like a physical blow. Peter felt his knees buckle as every moment of self-doubt and failure came rushing back with magnified intensity.

Beside him, Nightingale staggered, his usual composure cracking under the supernatural assault. Even Constantine, who seemed immune to most forms of psychological attack, went pale and took a step backward.

"That's not possible," Constantine breathed. "The wards should have—"

"Your wards are designed to keep things out," Nightingale said, forcing himself upright through sheer willpower. "But this is coming from below. From the ley lines themselves."

Peter extended his senses, following the familiar currents of power that flowed beneath the city. What he found made his blood run cold. The ley lines that had once carried clean, natural energy were now polluted with something that felt like liquid despair. And at the center of the corruption, directly beneath the ruins of the old Casanova Club, something was pulsing with malevolent life.

"It's using the city's own power grid against us," Peter said. "Turning Newcastle into a weapon."

Constantine was already moving, grabbing items from his collection with practiced efficiency. "Then we go to the source. The club's ruins—that's where this started, and that's where it has to end."

"That's suicide," Nightingale protested. "If this entity is as powerful as you suggest, walking into its stronghold would be—"

"The only chance we have," Constantine interrupted. "Every minute we wait, it gets stronger. And if it manages to fully manifest, to create a permanent anchor in our reality..." He didn't finish the sentence, but he didn't need to. The implications were clear enough.

Peter felt the weight of decision settling on his shoulders. This wasn't what he'd signed up for when he'd joined the police force, or even when he'd become Nightingale's apprentice. This was something far beyond normal supernatural crime, something that could reshape the very nature of reality if left unchecked.

"What do we need to do?" he asked.

Constantine's smile was sharp and dangerous. "We need to break every rule of sensible magical practice. We need to combine three completely different magical traditions into something that's never been attempted before. And we need to do it while fighting our way through a city that's actively trying to kill us."

"And if we fail?"

"Then a lot of people die, Hell gets a permanent foothold in the mortal world, and a nine-year-old girl continues to suffer for my mistakes for the rest of eternity."

The silence that followed was heavy with unspoken fears. Finally, Nightingale straightened his tie with mechanical precision—a gesture that Peter had learned meant he was preparing for something unpleasant but necessary.

"Very well," the older man said quietly. "But we do this properly. No reckless heroics, no unnecessary risks. We plan, we prepare, and we execute with precision."

Constantine snorted. "Precision? We're about to walk into Hell's front yard and pick a fight with something that's been feeding on pure agony for thirty years. Precision went out the window the moment we decided to do this."

"Nevertheless," Nightingale replied with arctic calm, "we will proceed methodically. Peter, I want you to map the ley line corruption—find us the safest route to the club. Mr. Constantine, you'll need to prepare whatever offensive measures you consider necessary. And I'll establish a communication link with the Folly, in case we need backup."

"Backup?" Constantine laughed, but there was no humor in it. "You think your department's going to send reinforcements into a supernatural war zone?"

"No," Nightingale said simply. "But they'll need to know what happened to us, so they can prepare for what comes next."

The grim practicality of the statement settled over them like a shroud. They were going into battle against an enemy that had been growing stronger for months, armed with an untested combination of magical traditions and the desperate hope that three very different men could work together long enough to save the world.

As they prepared for what might be their final mission, Peter caught Constantine staring at the photograph of Astra Logue he'd taped to his wall. The girl smiled back at them from across three decades, frozen in a moment of innocent happiness that had been shattered by one man's arrogance and ambition.

"We'll get her back," Peter said quietly.

Constantine turned to look at him, and for a moment, his mask of cynical detachment slipped completely. "You don't know what you're promising, lad. Some mistakes can't be unmade."

"Maybe not," Peter replied. "But that doesn't mean we stop trying."

For the first time since they'd met, Constantine smiled without a trace of sarcasm. "Well then," he said, stubbing out his cigarette. "Let's go save a little girl's soul."