Sell you a Bridge chapter 238 (Patreon)

June 2nd 2016 London, England 2:00 PM EDT

After we finished breakfast we walked around for a few hours, Jim  showing us all the places he used to go when he was younger. Eventually  though Jim pulled out an old silver pocket watch, checked the time, and  tsked in annoyance. "Ah, I'm afraid our tour is at an end children. Our  meeting with the illustrious John Constantine is at hand. We're meeting  him at The Old Rose pub. Excellent timing too, it's about time for tea."  I wasn't entirely certain it ever WASN'T time for tea in the UK based  on what I'd seen, but we shrugged it off and followed my mentor to the  meeting, taking my badass car.

When we arrived we found  our guide waiting for us, sitting at a table nursing a mug of beer.  Despite it being like, two PM, John Constantine looked like he'd just  crawled out of a gutter he woke up in. His blonde hair was messy, his  blue eyes bloodshot and ringed with circles so dark they looked like  bruises, and he tan canvas trench coat was rumpled and stained in places  as he took pull after pull of his liquid lunch. I couldn't resist  turning to my mentor. "Are all british people drunks or are you just a  bad influence."

Constantine snorted, raising an eyebrow at  me. "Nothing else to do round here mate, getting sloshed helps pass the  time. It's either this or lay around all day watching the tellie, and I  need sustenance to maintain my girlish figure." He took another long  pull of his drink, and I was surprised to realize that under the rumpled  exterior he was only a year or two older than I was. I wondered how  someone like him had gotten involved with Madame Xanadu in the first  place, but it didn't seem like the time to ask about that. We had other  business.

I plopped down in the other side of the booth.  "Some Madame X says you can get us to the Nightside?" I was expecting  him to drag it out and play the disaffected youth, but to my surprise he  choked and the beer went up his nose. His eyes widened in shock and  darted around as he coughed and pounded his chest, trying to recover  from the alcolohic burn of beer going down the wrong pipe.

He  glanced frantically to either side of us before leaning in to whisper  at me harshly. "Bloody hell mate, are you completely insane? You can't  use that word here! Saying that anywhere within city limits is a one way  ticket to attention none of us want." He reached into his coat and  pulled out a series of chains and necklaces with a mishmash of religious  and mystical symbols on them. He flipped through the symbols, muttering  the occasional prayer or invocation as he tried them each one at a  time, and then finally sighed in relief. "Good, we weren't noticed." He  leveled a glare at me. "Watch your damn mouth before it gets us all  killed."

Jim knocked twice on the table and slipped out a  strange metal device. It looked like the stand for a globe but with a  flat clear glass lens instead of a planet held between the two spindles.  He flicked it gently and it started to spin. Rather than slow down  however, after a few seconds it started to pick up speed. A tiny glint  of light had shone through the lend but as it spun the light expanded,  filling the glass completely until the spinning lens formed a sphere of  light that then expanded to cover the whole booth as we all squeezed  into it. Once that was done he nodded. "My apologies Mr. Constantine.  This was my oversight not my disciple's. It has been remedied, you may  speak freely."

Despite the theatrics I very much doubted  we'd been in any actual danger. Jim wasn't a rookie or an idiot, if  there was danger in mentioning the Nightside here he already knew it and  most likely had less obvious protections in place to compensate. Most  likely he'd been testing John to see how he would react to the  provocation, and my mentor's aura seemed to suggest that he was pleased  with Constantine's response.

The blue eyed brit glared at  my teacher for a bit before taking another long pull, draining his glass  completely and slamming his mug down with a bang. "Right. You lot are  here to get into the Nightside. I assume I don't need to give you the  usual speech about how your souls will be in danger, you might all die,  you taint yourselves by even thinking of the place, or that you'd be  fools to enter?" We all shook our heads and he just sighed. "Bloody  americans. Always think you know better than everyone else."

I  shot him a dark look. "Hey, I resent that! I don't appreciate you  making assumptions about me. Me thinking I know better than you has  nothing to do with being american, I'm just a really condescending  person." That actually got a flicked of a smile from the dour and  disaffected brit. He hadn't meant it anyway, his aura clearly showed  that he just liked to rile people up, and my attempt to serve it back  had warmed him up to me a bit. "Seriously though, can you get us there?  We realize it's a bad idea but I have family there I need to find."

He  gave a long sigh. "Ah, good intentions. Excellent for paving the road  to hell. Luckily you're close enough that you don't really need to walk  that far. But if you know the risks it's not my job to try to convince  you. I owed the Madame a favor, and I know some people over on that side  of things that will be less likely than most to harvest your organs  from behind when you turn around. Yes, I can get you there. Though I  warn you, it's never a pleasant trip. I haven't been back in a year or  two. Not since I finished my apprenticeship to be a PI."

We  didn't leave right away. John insisted on getting another mug of beer.  He said he refused to make the journey sober. One he was finished  draining another huge glass we headed outside and got in the Regalia,  which he admired appropriately because it was awesome, and he gave me  directions to the nearest subway station. When we pulled in we got out  of the car and I turned to look at John archly. "This is your terrifying  entrance to the Nightside? We're going to take the train? I bet they  charge like...twenty percent more for a ticket huh? I can see why you  would be afraid."

John  just snickered. "That's a good attitude to have, as long as you can  still react when something tries to kill you. By all means, be a smart  arse. Gods only know I wish I could still make jokes about this kind of  thing. Somehow though, i doubt you're going to find it funny for much  longer." His voice was even, but I could see in his eyes he was actually  nervous, and I got the feeling not many things scared him. John  Constantine didn't strike me as a person easily frightened. The aura  around him was actually starting to make me worry.

Aside  from the fear, John's aura told the story of a pretty terrifying  person. Covered with powerful nasty magic and deals he'd made for one  reason or another, with strange flickers of bright gold sparkling  through it and vanishing too fast for me to actually understand what was  happening. But everything about him showed me that he'd seen some shit,  and done even worse, and this was STILL absolutely terrifying to him,  which wasn't a great sign for the rest of us. We followed him into the  subway station, and I stayed on my guard, making sure I was out in front  of the girls and Wally just in case.

We  took the escalators down to the train platform, stopping to get tickets  from a machine instead of a desk like I'd been expecting. I'd never  really taken the subway in Gotham, the train compartments were too good  at holding in Joker Venom and Fear Gas. Still, I followed John down the  walkway on one side and then down a slightly protruding walkway  alongside the tunnels. We walked for about fifteen minutes, taking  multiple turns down apparently random subway tunnels until we finally  came to a door.

John  gestured for us to go inside, and I held up a hand, scanning over the  door with my aura sight. I didn't see anything special, though whether  there was nothing there or it was just hidden I didn't know. Glancing up  I saw a strange sign over the door in a language that I didn't  recognize. I turned to John with a raised eyebrow, but it was Zee who  volunteered an answer. "That's Enochian." I looked at her quizzically,  and despite talking about magic she didn't look as excited as usual.  "It's an artificial language that was created by magic users to enable  them to talk to angels."

John  nodded, opening the door. "That it is. But we're on a schedule if you  please." He gestured into what appeared to be a closet, full of  scarecrows in uniforms that looked like the ones on the people who  worked here. The room was dull grey cement, and fairly small, but we  were all able to fit, and John shut the door behind us before walking  over to an old payphone on the wall. In the silence that had cut off the  sounds of the subway patrons when the door closed I could hear there  wasn't a dial tone as he picked the phone up and simply said  "Nightside."

The  wall on the side of the room that was bare until now split in two and  opened with a low grinding sound, and we were all suddenly staring down a  completely new tunnel. The walls of the new tunnel were red and rough,  and in the low light it kind of looked like we were about to walk down a  vein. Artemis raised a hand mockingly. "Can I vote we don't go down the  creepy flesh colored tunnel? Because I'm starting to get what John boy  here was talking about with all his doom and gloom, and he was right, I  preferred finding this funny."

Admittedly  I was right there with her, this was super creepy, but we had to keep  going. Kit was out there, somewhere at the end of this tunnel, and  despite what might have happened she was family. She'd asked for my  help, and while I might not have been able to be there for her before, I  could be there now, and I would be. Zee took one of my hands, and Drea  the other and I nodded to John, who was just waiting casually off to one  side for us to get up the courage to follow the tunnel.

It  wasn't just the sight that was worrying. The place smells like a  thousand different perfumes and scents that shouldn't exist. Some good,  some awful, some so good they looped back around to being sickening, or  so awful they were almost addictive. I heard voices too, whispers on the  edge of my hearing that were saying things I both didn't want to and  needed to hear, along with snippets of music that sounded both haunting  and eerie. It was sensory overload, in the worst possible way. We headed  down the tunnel, and when we finally came out we were standing on a  train platform.

This  one was full of people too, but not like the ones before. Their auras  were strange. Some terrible, some beautiful, some boring or amazing,  some hopeless and some that looked like they could take on the world.  Off to one side was a train, surprisingly well maintained compared to  the terrible condition of the white tile of the platform, which was full  of gouges and claw marks and occasional blood spatter. I turned to John  and he just gestured out into the platform. "We have about fifteen  minutes before the train leaves. Feel free to look around." So, with a  shrug, we headed out to talk to the locals. Best to get an idea about  the kind of place we were headed.