[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/xPfAC72.jpg[/img][/center] [i]London. If you got any records by The Clash nearby now would be the time to play it, yeah? She’s over two thousand years old. Romans officially founded her, though there were villages around that particular patch of Thames thousands of years before any of those toga wearing pussies even set foot on the island. What started as a few shacks by the river is now one of the largest cities in the world and the capital of western civilization for a millennia. They say that a city is only as good as its people. I think there’s some truth to that. L.A. is a vapid, polluted cesspool because of the vapid, polluted people that occupy it. London is… something else entirely. It's because of its people. The city has been through it all. Plagues, war, riots, serial killers, Beetlemania, take your pick and Londoners went through it with a stiff upper lip. A fire burns 80,000 homes? We'll rebuild. The bloody Luftwaffe bomb the city every night? One your bike, Adolf. But that thick skin has its downside. They get too busy keeping calm and carrying on they miss things. Children go missing and are never seen again, a mad man kills five Whitechapel working girls and disappears without a trace, a whole neighborhood in the grips of mass hysteria lynch black sailors for fighting with white dockworkers. And it's all to due with what's below. There’s something down there, beneath the Underground and the shit pipes and power lines and rats, something below the ancient catacombs. Something that beats as the heart of hidden London. A place of ghosts, monsters, and urban legends. A place where myths become flesh and blood. It’s a place that no mage has gone into and come out sane. Well… no mage except one.[/i] --- [b]The Underground 1968[/b] Roy Parker kept one hand on the wound in his side, the other hand on the bag of cash. He was slowly limping down the underground corridors. The job had gone wrong. And of course it fucking had, thought Roy. That’s what he got for letting Calum plan the bloody thing. A simple armored car job, he had said. The wanker hadn’t planned on the guards actually having guns. Both sides opened up and started a fucking massacre in the middle of street. Wounded, Roy grabbed a bag of cash and ran during the fight. Calum was dead and their driver Carl was on the way to being dead. With no car, Roy ducked into the Underground and then a side door near the tube platform. He kept going without thinking of where he was going. As long as he got some distance between himself and Old Bill that would be fine. But now he was... where the hell was he? With a sigh, Roy leaned against the wall of the corridor. The cold stone felt good on his back. He looked down at his side and sighed in relief. He was bleeding, but the wound looked like it was just a nick. It was still bleeding, but he was confident that it would slow and clot sooner than later. He cursed when he saw a trail of blood drops on the ground leading towards him. He had to hurry less the police managed to find the trail. Taking a deep breath, Roy started back down the corridor. Wherever he was, it didn’t look like anything else he had ever seen. The walls were stone, like something out of the bloody middle ages.All Roy needed was a fiery torch to complete the look. The sound of something shuffling cut off Roy’s thoughts. He pulled his hand away from his wound with a grunt and reached into his jacket pocket, pulling out a revolver. “Who’s there?” Squinting in the dark, Roy could make out a small shape further down the corridor. It was crawling his way slowly but surely. He finally made out the form of a rat scuttling across the floor, smelling and licking the drops of blood on the floor. When it was close enough, Roy stepped on its spine. It squealed and thrashed as it died. “Fucking vermin,” he spat. Roy turned away and started back down the corridor. He was only a few feet down when he heard the shuffling noise. This time, it was accompanied by squeaking. A dozen rats were now making their way down the hall towards him, using his blood as a roadmap towards him. Cursing, Roy took a shot and blew one of the rats away. The gunfire in the small hallway hurt his ears, but it kept the rats at bay. They hurried back to where they came from while Roy hitched the bag up and turned back to run. He started to hurry down the hall as fast as his injury and bag of cash would allow him. He heard more scuttling and more squeaks, more than he could imagine. He looked over his shoulder and saw dozens of rats heading towards him, this time moving far faster than they had before. Roy started firing over his shoulder at the rats as he was now running outright with the loot. His foot hit some uneven part of the floor and sent him sprawling to the ground. The gun slipped from his hand, the bag of cash ripped and sent pound notes flying in the air. On his back and covered in cash, Roy saw hundreds of the rodents rushing towards him. He screamed as the pack of rats overtook him. --- [B]Brixton Now[/b] “Of course it’s bloody raining.” John Constantine stood outside the tube station, taking in the site of the Brixton Road. Ten years since the last time he stepped foot on the road and it was still the same. Still filled with the same shops and same depressing overcast sky with drizzling rain. Same slow moving traffic and jaywalking pedestrians daring the cars to hit them. For the first time in a long time, John thought of Chas. Chas was one of the many who thought he was dead. He wondered how he would react to knowing his old friend was still alive. “Wouldn’t be London without the rain,” Jack Hawksmoor said with a smile. None of the passing commuters seemed to take stock of the barefoot man standing in the rain. “Of all my children, London is among my favorite. Not the biggest or the oldest, but I'll take her over New York, Los Angeles, and all the megacities in China any day.” John grunted as he pulled a fresh cigarette from his jacket and lit it up. “Sure as hell isn't because of the weather… or the food. C’mon, I know a pub close by.” A few minutes later they were settled in to a booth at the pub. John had a pint in his hands while Hawksmoor took in the surroundings. “This building didn’t exist three hundred years ago. This whole part of London was farmland back then. Brixton was known for its windmills. When I would jump around rooftops, I could see them off in the distance.” “Time marches on,” John muttered into his pint. “Nothing gold can stay, etc. You come back in ten years, I bet this pub will be either a Sainsbury's or a Starbucks. So when do I get to leave, Jack?” “When you help me.” Jack laid his hands on the table for John to see. They were spotted and worn, the blue veins noticeable against the pale skin. There were red spiderwebs of infection arching from the veins and into the flesh of his hands and arms. They looked to John like a sign of blood poisoning. “I think I’m dying.” “That’s impossible." John shook his head and blew smoke from his mouth as he spoke. “If you were some Celtic water sprite I’d say yeah, but you’re god of the cities. Billions of people worship at your altar, knowingly or unknowingly, every day. You’re not exactly the Endless when it comes to power, but you sure as hell got more juice than any of the Judeo-Christian lot.“ “You’d think,” Jack said, his eyes looking down at his hands. “But you have the proof here for yourself. This is a new development. At least the past decade I've been feeling... something like death. I spent that time tracing the source of my decay through all my children until I finally found it to be in London in a very unique place...” “Lemme guess where that is,” John said with a scowl. “The Underland,” said Jack. “No. Fuck no.” “Please, John,” Jack pleaded. “You’re the only person who has gone down there and emerged unscathed.” “If that’s what you want to call it,” John said softly. “[i]Unscathed[/i]. Why should I help you, Hawksmoor? You’re just a manifestation of belief. Like a bloody cloud that runs on hopes and dreams. You get wiped out, so the fuck what? That won’t end the world. Guess what happened when they stopped believing in Apollo? The sun rose the next day.” “What if it’s more than that?” Hawksmoor asked, his hands balling up into fists. “What if the thing that’s in the Underland is killing me off to take my place? For over ten millennia, I’ve been a benevolent god. What if what comes after me isn’t so nice. What then?” John’s reply died in his throat. Two men in suits stood in front of their table. John could sense them reaching out to him, trying to get his measure. It was a common enough trait among the magi community of London. They called it scanning the barcode. John did the same and knew exactly who they were and who sent them. “Mr. Constantine,” one of them said. “Ms. Sackville requires your presence.” “Of course,” said John. “Haven’t even been in town for an hour yet, but already the Tate Club comes calling.”