The heavy velvet curtains of the villa tore free from their brass rods, swirling through the air like spiritual serpents. With blinding speed, they whipped around Wade's masked face, violently wrapping and knotting themselves tightly across his mouth.
The entire grand foyer fell into instant, blissful silence.
It was absolute proof: even ancient, malevolent demons couldn't stand the Merc with a Mouth.
The demon inhabiting Lila looked at the thrashing, muffled Wade with profound disgust, her pitch-black eyes gazing at him as if he were a pile of rotting garbage. Only after Wade was securely gagged did the deep furrow in her brow finally relax.
Her neck snapped back toward John Constantine, who was picking himself up from the floor.
"Mr. Sorcerer. I don't believe I caught your name," the demon purred, raising a hand and curling her fingers into a claw. "Before you die, won't you introduce yourself? Perhaps when you arrive downstairs, we can be colleagues."
An invisible telekinetic grip seized John by the lapels of his trench coat, floating him effortlessly across the room toward her outstretched palm.
As the demon finished her threat, a cold, mocking smile reached Constantine's eyes.
PFFT.
The mouthful of pure, blessed Holy Water he had been holding in his cheeks sprayed directly into Lila's face.
A thick plume of foul, greenish smoke immediately erupted from her skin. The holy liquid was searing, scalding, and bone-chilling to the demonic entity.
"AGH!"
In her blinding agony, the demon instantly lost her telekinetic grip. John dropped safely to the floor. Lila clutched her blistering face with both hands, stumbling backward in a panic.
"Despicable!" the demon shrieked, her voice layering into a monstrous roar. "You bastard!!"
But the power of a simple mouthful of Holy Water was limited. After a brief moment of agonizing pain, the white smoke cleared. Lila lowered her hands, glaring at John Constantine with eyes swimming in intense, murderous resentment.
At this moment, she completely lost the desire to toy with the mouse. She just wanted to crush him.
With a violent sweep of her arm, every silver knife and fork from the adjacent dining room tore through the air, suspending themselves in the foyer. The razor-sharp tips of the antique silverware slowly rotated, aiming directly at John's heart.
"Whether human or demon, mate..." John said calmly, patting his coat pockets. "...I believe one should always watch their step."
Facing a floating armory of sharp weapons, Constantine showed absolutely no fear. Instead, he coolly pulled a crushed pack of Silk Cuts from his pocket, placed a cigarette between his lips, and lit it with a sharp clack of his Zippo. He took a deep drag.
Hearing John's words, the demon's black pupils constricted. She looked down at her feet.
A perfectly drawn magic circle of crushed bone powder encircled her. In her arrogant advance, she had stepped squarely into the center of the trap Constantine had secretly laid upon entering.
Constantine clenched both fists. He placed one hand over his heart and pointed the other fiercely toward the vaulted ceiling.
"Almighty Lord!" John's voice boomed, carrying a terrifying, authoritative resonance. "Let your people find the gates to the Kingdom of Heaven. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—"
"Damn it, stop! STOP!!" the demon shrieked.
As Constantine recited the incantation, a towering wall of brilliant, blinding white holy fire ignited from the bone powder, instantly trapping Lila inside a blazing cylinder of light.
Surrounded by the holy fire, the demon was completely cut off from the ambient magic of the room. The floating silverware clattered harmlessly to the floor.
As the ancient Latin incantation poured from Constantine's lips, the entity inside Lila's body withered in agony. It roared continuously, hurling vile curses and demanding the exorcist stop.
John didn't stop. He stepped closer to the flames, his voice growing faster, louder, and increasingly commanding.
Under the crushing dual pressure of the exorcism and the holy fire, the demon finally broke.
Lila tilted her head back, her jaw unhinging to an impossible, grotesque angle. A thick, suffocating cloud of oily black smoke violently spewed from her mouth.
The demonic smoke swirled frantically in the air, dashing left and right, desperately trying to break through the cage of holy fire. But every time it touched the barrier, the light burned it severely. There was absolutely no hope of escape.
Down on one knee, Constantine pulled a heavy, engraved silver flask from his coat. He unscrewed the cap and held it out.
Seeing the dark, cool void of the flask, the panicked smoke saw a glimmer of hope. It dove straight down from mid-air, fleeing the holy fire, and poured itself entirely into the silver bottle.
The second the last wisp of black smoke entered, John slammed the cap shut and screwed it tight.
"Fuck you!" a tiny, muffled, echoing voice screamed from inside the metal flask. "You goddamn bastard! You actually filled it with Holy Water!!"
"Not full, mate," John smirked, tapping the side of the flask. "I just took a sip."
John gave the flask a violent, cocktail-shaker rattle. The muffled curses instantly turned into agonizing, high-pitched screams.
The holy fire in the room slowly flickered and vanished. The heavy curtains binding Wade suddenly went limp, dropping to the floor.
Freed from his velvet prison, Wade gasped for air.
"Man, these demons are absolutely disgusting!" Wade complained, peeling the curtains off his face. "Even more invasive and gross than that bald guy in the wheelchair who likes to peek inside your head!"
Wade immediately sprinted over to John's side, his white lenses widening with childish glee as he stared at the vibrating silver flask.
"Let me play with it, Johnny! Just once! Come on!"
John ignored him, keeping the flask tightly in his grip. He slowly walked over to Lila, who had collapsed onto the hardwood, and knelt beside her. As Wade enthusiastically pantomimed shaking a maraca, the screams from inside the flask grew even more shrill.
"She's fine now," John said softly to Grace, who was sitting blankly on the floor, too stunned to move. He gently checked Lila's pupils; they were a clear, healthy blue. "But don't let her go near any dark, filthy corners or play with occult garbage in the future. Having been possessed once, her soul is scarred. She's a beacon now. She is exactly the kind of vessel those bastards like best."
Today's horrific events were entirely too much for a normal human to process. Grace was still in a complete daze. Constantine's blunt warning finally snapped her out of it.
After a frantic, tearful examination confirming her daughter was breathing normally, Grace scooped the unconscious Lila into her arms and hurried upstairs, away from the carnage of the foyer.
John stood up. His cynical gaze turned back to the silver bottle in his hand. He swatted Wade's grasping hands away, ignoring the mercenary's noisy protests, and held the flask up to his ear.
His expression turned deadly serious.
"What is your name?" John demanded coldly. "And what is your purpose?"
The flask gradually stopped vibrating. The demon inside slowly stabilized its seared essence. It didn't answer his question directly. Instead, a wet, mocking voice echoed from the silver metal.
"That seems to be a question I asked you before, Sorcerer."
John's face showed zero emotion. He simply shook the bottle violently like a paint mixer.
"Agh! Damn it! You bastard, I'll definitely kill you! BASTARD!!"
Successive, agonizing screams rang out until the voice inside began to grow weak and desperate.
"Stop! My name is Meghan!!" the demon finally yielded. "My name is Meghan! I was just following orders from above to come to Earth ahead of schedule!"
The demon paused, trying to switch tactics.
"There's no benefit to offending me, Sorcerer. Soon, Earth will be completely occupied by Hell. You're a smart man. You should make a smart decision and let me out!"
Hearing Meghan's words, John's already serious expression darkened into an absolute scowl.
'She yielded way too fast,' John thought, his instincts screaming at him. 'No high-tier demon would surrender their agenda to a street-level exorcist this easily unless the invasion is already in motion.'
As expected. They had a much deeper, apocalyptic conspiracy.
"Speak!" John snarled, shaking the flask one more time for good measure. "Who is behind you?! What exactly is your endgame?!"
Meghan's attempt to recruit him was laughable. John Constantine's enemies were spread across every terrifying circle of Hell, and it seemed this new universe's Hell was no different. Although he hadn't been in this world for long, every demon he had encountered hated him to his very core.
One had to admit, pissing off the entirety of the underworld across multiple multiverses was a very unique talent.
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