JLA Watchtower (Archive)

The fact that he's using sheer blasts of magic should show just how powerful he's become in Shadowcrest, and how Zatanna has influenced him just as much as he has her. The chains connect to him as well, after all.

"Of all the people to barge into my home uninvited, it gets to be you. Oh, Constantine, you shouldn't have done this. I had far more cruel ways for you to die."

Another wave of energy expels from the man's hand, which bears straight into Constantine's chest.

Funnily enough, nothing has yet been aimed at Zachary. It's almost as if Papa can't even see him yet--smoke enshrouds him somehow, keeping him off the magus' radar completely.

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The real point of his blowing smoke in Zach's face at Xanadu's. Little twerp didn't even have the guts to say 'thanks.'

John rises back up to his feet, unprepared for the assault Midnight is unleashing. He and Midnight don't fight this way--they're both too subtle, too underground to just push on the forces of reality. They pull and manipulate.

Still, that doesn't mean John doesn't know how to fight back. He quickly tugs his coat off, and as the next force of will slams towards him, the coat is flicked forward as if trying to encourage a bull, and the blast is reflected. This time, it's Papa who's sent reeling backwards, a bookcase tumbling on top of him.

John takes the moment just long enough to push Zach towards Zee, while he can still keep Papa from seeing through the glamour.

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Papa's surprised by the return blow, and it takes him a moment to shake the books off and climb back to his feet.

"That's better, Constantine. I can still make this cruel, so long as you're going to give it your best."

Zatanna gives a lurch as Papa *pulls* on her power, and invisible chains wrap themselves around Constantine, and then begin to squeeze.

"Please. Scream. I want to taste it."

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Zatanna quietly struggles against Midnight, trying her best to put up a fight, but he's too strong, and he's only gotten stronger. She feels him tap into her power, and she's still unable to put up a block of any sort. She looks in Zatara's general direction desperately.

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Zachary shook his head, suppressing a groan, as he started carefully pulling apart Zanna's mystical bonds. He didn't want to risk setting off any wards Midnite had put into them, but he had to hurry as well.

He'd free his cousin, and then she'd bring the true power of Shadowcrest to bear against this miserable voudoun deadbeat.

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Zatanna felt the bonds of magic that had tied her to Midnight slowly start to loosen, snapping loose. As it did so, power inside of her being to swell. Still, she allowed Midnight to siphon power from her.

He couldn't know she was getting loose.

Yet.

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The chains do tighten, but John doesn't scream. Instead, he fishes in his pocket for his lighter, and manages to have just enough leverage to flick it open beneath one of the chains. The magical chains burn away with little difficulty in the talisman's flame, and John takes a step forward.

He sees Zach's efforts out of the corner of his eye, and knows that they won't have much time if Papa notices what's happening. Distraction time.

"What are you doing, Midnight? Force bolts? Conjurations? If you really wanted to throw everything at me, you'd have hexed me, not just thrown magic around. She's changed you."

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"Bite your tongue," the other man snarles.

A hand is thrown forward, and Midnight's words--what should have been a spell, forcing Constantine to bite off his own tongue--become a different type of curse, one with no magical effort behind it at all.

The voodoo hex's energy convents to the energy used by a conjurer, someone more like Zatarra would be if she weren't his personal battery.

Personal. Battery.

Oh, that bitch.

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There'd been a lot of power behind that hex, but it's sudden transition cripples it. Midnight's aim becomes imprecise at best, horribly off-kilter at worst. He has no practice with this kind of power, so he's become a brawler.

Compared to Midnight now, John's a fucking surgeon.

A small vial is pulled from John's pocket, and the mage hurls it at Midnight, whose face causes the glass to shatter.

And then the face starts to fester. The vial's contents, a warding potion created from one of Zee's hairs would have neutralized her if it ever really had come to a fight between the two. On Midnight, pulling from Zee, it simply burns.

"So you've figured it out, then. What did you think, that you would be untouched in all this? You've been practicing this kind of magic for years, and you didn't see this coming. All your zombis and slaves are corpses for a reason, you twat. You can't bind someone to you and expect them not to touch you."

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That rank fucking bitch. He'll kill her--he'll kill all of them. The mage and the bitch together. And then let Constantine dare to lecture him about zombi.

He pulls on Zee again, stronger this time than before. The energy makes no effort to even attempt to warp to a useable form. It is the magic of a conjurer, and evocateur, and no matter how much he channels it, he can't use it.

Well. He can't use it well. But for this, he won't need to.

The force that hits John can't miss--he isn't throwing lances of power anymore. He's throwing h-bombs. He can't kill John the way he wants to, but he can sure as hell kill him somehow.

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Maybe. Maybe not.

Zach never really was much for subtlety. "Sorry Zanna, this may sting..." He pulls at the remaining bonds on her, ripping them free and feeling them burn against his hands. "Eldritch weave, return they bonds and strike thy crafter!" He swings the remainder of the spell right at Midnight, trying to trap him within the spell he made himself.

Of course... there was a little extra curse that Zach had managed to weave in. If Midnight simply dispelled his own attack, that energy would go into Zach's own spell. Flesh-rending tentacles that would pin the zombi user in place, for starters.

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Zatanna falls back, a scream erupting from her lips as her eyes glow brightly, her full power returning to her in torrents.

She sits up, willing herself to recover, and she scrambles to her feet. She raises her arms high above her head, mystical winds surrounding her currently too-slender frame, her raven locks lifted off her shoulders.

She looks down at Midnite, her expression icy, and without a single word sends wave after wave of powerful magick his way.

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He has just enough time to register a radical shift in power, and then he sees Zatanna's attack. With no time to react, the blows from the Zatarras send him flying backwards, binding him at the same time.

He recovers, though, from Zees attack, and the smaller boy's--though where he came from, Midnight can only guess--spell falls harmlessly off.

"Nice try, boy, but you'll have to do more than send my magic back at me. I'm still in control of my slaves, whether that includes me or not."

His glare returns Zatanna's hate, and he mutters the words to bind her under his breath. He still feels some kind of bridge there, so he assumes that the spell is not yet entirely broken--he pulls on the chains, leeching power to himself.

It's odd, though. Power doesn't rush from Zee, but it does rush forward. He might not have known where it came from at all, if Zach's wrists didn't suddenly erupt in pain, manacles seemingly burning into his flesh.

Midnight strikes back, Zach's power hurled at Zatanna to keep her at bay, and he begins to laugh.

"You have strength, boy, but what did you think would happen? That spell isn't one you can just break--it can only transfer. Congratulations on your rescue attempt, but, well...

""

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Zach felt his muscles seize as he was brought to a standstill. He struggled against it, tried to find the words to dispel it, but they froze in his throat. He glared venomously back at Midnight, but was helpless to react.

//I'll make you pay for this. I'll send you soul hurtling into the abyss as you beg for mercy!!!//

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Zatanna, for her part, lays on the ground, spent, trying to recuperate. That was a lot of juice she'd thrown it...and it had done almost next to nothing.

She turned to John, crestfallen.

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Zee's powerful, sure, and so is Zach--more than he should be, matter of fact. The boost Papa just got was way more than John had been expecting when he'd set Zach up to take the fall.

What? You didn't really think that was on accident, did you?

John's brain flies, plans and schemes to take Papa down once and for all flashing through his head. But on the spot like this, and with the power the younger mage Papa has at his disposal, all his plans keep coming back to Zee. She's the only one with the strength to do this.

So when he sees the vial of blood on Papa's altar, he puts two and two together rather quickly. His eyes lock on to Zee's, and then point to the blood. Hopefully she can figure it out. Meanwhile, all John has to do is keep Papa distracted.

"Hey Midnight. You're the expert in this type of magic. What do you think happens if I set this on fire?"

From John's pocket comes a small plush rabbit, with real rabbit hair bound onto its cotton 'fur,' and with a quick flick of his lighter the rabbit is on fire.

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Midnight doesn't catch on fire. That would be too easy.

Except that it feels like he does. The fur has a weaker connection than many Voudoun reagents possess, it being the fur he had while a rabbit-pet of John's. He has of course changed since, which means the hair has lost quite a bit of its potency.

But in a place charged with mystical energies, and with all the magic that's pooled around John's lighter over the years, the fire still burns.

And Midnight still screams.

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His screaming rips into her ears, but Zatanna ignores it.

In all seriousness, it feels good to hear him scream.

She struggles with herself, pulling herself to the altar.

Her blood.

Why the hell didn't she think of this earlier.

She closed her eyes and concentrated, remembering a spell she'd read once and had never used.

Talking backwards wasn't going to be enough for this one.

She smashed the vial on the ground, and the blood rose from it, a rosy red gas, circling around Zatanna and seeping into her, her life-force returning to her, her full power returning to her.

Her eyes spark with power, and she turns to John, all the pain, struggling, and weakness gone from her person.

Oh hell.

Zatanna's back.

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"Anytime now, love!"

John can feel the rabbit-doll starting to fall apart from within, and the spell holding Midnight in pain won't last much longer. If Zee's going to take him out, she needs to do it now.

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She smiles.

It's a beautiful smile. Brimming with power and magic and confidence.

The winds whip up in the room. Shadowcrest starts to moan and groan. Magickal artifacts start to whirl around them. Zatanna herself stands at the middle of a magickal maelstrom, her irises going white, as she silently calls upon the powers of Shadowcrest, of the Homo Magi, and of her father.

And the funny thing, she thinks as she locks eyes with a starting-to-cower-Papa is that a lot of what she's doing is just for show.

She could snap her fingers right now and destroy him.

But she's a stage magician.

Drama is always part of the act.

She threw her head back as she was filled with every bit of magic that Midnight had ever learned, had ever known.

So much of it was dark.

As his powers flowed into hers, so did Zachary's.

and the golden threads of her cousin's binding fell away.

Power - both hers and Midnight's - surged through Zatanna's body mixed in with rage. Never had the sorceress appeared more scary.

She turned to John.

She'd need him for this last bit.

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And she'll have him.

The lighter he's been using--the one so infused with his magic that the Thessalian was willing to help him just to obtain it--is tossed to Zee's hands. Another talisman for her to use.

Not that he isn't contributing on his own, too. His own method of magic has been working overtime tonight, and he's pouring the last of it into this spell. He's not flashy-lights and incanations like Zatanna is. Instead, his power is acting as a beacon.

Zee's stealing Papa's power has more repercussions than she knows. Papa has many slaves, and many spirit attendants. It's the nature of the Voodoun practitioner.

John's heading them off at the pass. Mixing his power with Zee, he begins to chant in a forgotten African language, and the spirits encircling Zee come to bear on Papa Midnight. Let him be the victim of his own power.

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Zatanna grabs the lighter and switches it on.

"How does it feel, Midnight? The loss of power? Knowing that the end is near?" she asks over John's chanting. "How does it feel knowing that every single bad thing you have done is about to

All of the spirits rushed the crouched, cowering body of Papa Midnight.

Showiness switched to real magic as power and rage and revenge encircled him, liftng him up into the air, eating him alive, taking back some of their own for doing what he's done to so many people.

Suddenly all the light around him disappeared as his body started to vaporize at the seams. Black orbs of his psyche began to pop and burn and dissipate until there was nothing left.

Zatanna collapsed on the ground then, momentarily weakened, sweat covering her lithe, slender form.

She slid the lighter across the floor at John. "Thank you," she wheezed.

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Zach, keeled over as well, struggled to catch his breath. He staggered across the room, lurching towards Constantine with murder in his eyes. "...sonnova bitch... You set me up!!" Curses, REAL curses, started assembling in his mind.

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