Work Text:
Investigating magical Workings is one of Constantine's least favorite tasks. It's certainly his most interesting job, but it also is second only to summonings as the most likely to be a pain in the ass.
Zatanna, on the other hand, wholeheartedly loved it. She reveled In the creativity and the opportunity to learn new branches of magic.
John had been cataloging old manuscripts deep in a forgotten closet in the House of Mysteries when the map that tracked recent workings (above a certain power level) chimed. He glanced over to the map, only to drop a very old and very dusty book in shock. There were a few red lights of various shades, but those were the lowest end of the spectrum and didn't even merit a notification. The brightest light glowing on the map was white. That was the highest magical level they had and even worse, it was in Gotham.
Assuming the Bat didn't kill them immediately upon entering, the city would do its best in his place.
With a sigh of resignation, he packed everything he could think of and went to find Zatanna. There weren't enough containment spells or grounding circles in the world to make Gotham safe, but he would take everything that fit in his considerably expanded trench coat pockets.
Upon entering the warehouse that lit up as the epicenter of the mystery working, Constantine is horrified to find an absolute Frankenstein's monster of Working remnants. Zatanna is impressed and thinks it must've been an excellent show. Since Zatanna had discovered an ancient Seer's Grimoire during her travels, they decide to use it to see exactly what had happened here.
She pulls her magic to the surface and intones the spell: "Gnikrow eht Ees". The notes involved whirl around them like a tornado of paper, some with coffee stains and holes that look suspiciously like something sharp was stabbed through them. They hover around them, fluttering gently in the rippling magic. Constantine and Zatanna can delicately push both ingredients and papers aside slightly before they snap back into place in this reflection of Magic Past. Constantine begins to sift through the papers, turning them slightly so he can read them more easily, while Zatanna moves over to the circle to examine the physical remnants of the spell. Two bodies, roughly the same size and proportion, are lying in a strangely crafted magical circle and there's an altar at the northernmost point of the inner circle.
There doesn't seem to be any organization to the papers, so John starts with the closest one.
The first, and most baffling, thing that Constantine finds is a scrap of paper with the following text on it.
using Wizardry;
using Witchcraft;
using Alchemy;
using Chaos;
class Resurrect;
// function with integer return type declaration
{
topSecret zombie part2ElectricBoogaloo(body golem){
/*This ritual takes in the following physical inputs: a golem made of clay, various crystals and junk, and an only mildly concerning amount of blood. It utilizes the following power sources: Blood for the blood God! (The Blood God was actually not petitioned for this ritual. I asked Lady Gotham, Inanna, and Lemminkäinen.) Also magic meth. The requested magic is channeled through metallic cirguitry, imbedded in the golem and integrated with the circle beneath it, and some stabby, musical toothpicks of my own creation.Further clarification an be found in my other scribblings, presuming you care to look!*/
if ritual!=success{
try harder;
}
return superiorZombie;
}
}
With absolutely no idea what this means, Constantine pulls the next page towards him, a piece of lined paper clearly ripped from a spiral-bound notebook. There is a stick figure drawn on the page. Various runes and chakra symbols are drawn next to it, with arrows showing where they would go. There is scribbled text along the side. Elegant, looping cursive says, "This is an affront to the very concept of artistic expression."
In sharp, angular capital letters, a reply says, "I'm excellent at so many things, I don't need to be a good drawer. We have you for that."
There is no answer, but a heavy residue of palpable rage is imbued into the page. This is mildly entertaining but not particularly helpful, so Constantine continues searching for a clarifying document.
Meanwhile, Zatanna is attempting to examine the altar without the ability to truly pick anything up. There are many more artifacts present than the standard ritual, so it takes Zatanna some time to sift through it. Some of the components are pretty standard and she'll admit that she glosses over those a bit, but others are downright flabbergasting. The chalk outlines aren't special in the slightest and overlaying them with a blood layer as a binder and power enhancer is pretty standard. Combined with a haze in the air that she assumes is incense, that's about the only traditional method that this Magic Worker used, however. Two bodies are lying in the center of the circle. One is studded with a plethora of various gemstones, has dozens of little metal pins in it, and is a reddish-brown color. It is clear that it is not actually a human body, but rather an effigy or golem of some sort, made in the image of a human being. Thin, silvery metal traces across the body's skin in intricate patterns. There is no indication of exactly what the metal is, but it is interspersed with alchemical symbols, runes from several different runic alphabets, Latin phrases, and in one particularly strange instance, what looks like a quote from Pride and Prejudice. Zatanna can recognize all of the components, but cannot fathom how they all fit together. She is impressed and thinks the ritual is a testament to the strange beauty of witchcraft at its best. The other body in the circle is not beautiful, although it is just as haunting. It is also a reddish-brown color, except Zatanna is fairly certain that's largely caused by a mixture of dried blood and char. Zatanna hasn't done much work with bodies or souls in the past, so she isn't certain what she's looking at in regards to this second body and she's hoping that Constantine will be able to glean some additional details from the papers.
Constantine finally finds a page that looks like it might prove to be helpful. It is simply labeled "Materials" and begins with a list of possible effigy materials.
- 'Metal: [see mythology for Talos] invulnerability, limited connection with life magic. Major concern: metal struggles to maintain mental capacity. They would relish being invulnerable but sacrificing any amount of their intelligence is unacceptable and atrocious.'
- 'Pottery: specifically porcelain or ceramic, since anything else is untested. Too fragile. Major concerns: nerve damage/lack of sensitivity, osteoporosis/bone fragility'
- 'Clay: see notes on porcelain regarding fragility for fired clay. Must be unfired, but concerns about drying out. Solution: soak in fresh blood mixture before Working.'
This person seems to have been fairly thorough in their search for the ideal materials. Based on the section about sacrificing mental capacity being an unacceptable risk, Constantine assumes that the person they are looking for doesn't suffer fools lightly and intends to make fairly intelligent minions.
A subsection follows with additional details about the blood and additional binding agents beyond blood alone.
- 'Blood mixture, perhaps with added salts? The base should be emergency transfusion blood. (There's plenty, no one will even notice it's gone. There's no need to feel guilty about this. I'll have to keep reminding myself.)'
That sentence shows this magical practitioner has an interesting morality. Constantine questions what kind of person deems raising an army of necromantic minions to be morally acceptable, but questions using stored transfusion blood.
- 'Need a very solid binding spell to cement the connection to his new body. The following binding research is presented for consideration:'
Constantine squints a bit at this. Presented to whom? He can't tell if the writer is just being a bit silly or if this document was eventually meant to be shared with a larger audience. The messages in the margins earlier appeared to be unsolicited, rather than a collaboration.
- 'Gleipnir is an option, but it sounds overkill. Also, the whole point is that it's made of things that no longer exist, so unless I want to get very creative...'
- 'Ok let's assume that we needed to make this work, I could probably get beard hair from someone who identifies as a woman, roots of mountains... could be lava? Lava is what mountains grow out of; if you squint, that could be roots. Lava could also be a decent catalyst if I find a way to store it safely. I could steal one of Selina's shoes to use as the sound of a cat's footfall, I suppose. Bears definitely have sinew, I don't know why this is here. The breath of a fish sounds like gills to me, maybe a type of red snapper? It doesn't need to be that specific, but the red color is associated with both Robin and Hood and he certainly is snappish. For the spittle of birds... it sounds rather disgusting, but a vial containing the spit of everyone who has ever flown as Robin should do it. I could claim I need a saliva sample for drug testing. Well, I'm not sure if this is necessary, but it seems ultimately doable. I'll just loop the result over everything at the end and call it a day.’
Constantine is impressed by this person's ability to brush past the impossible and will it into being. It reminds him of someone, but he can't place who. He supposes that's what the slim, slightly damp, and dirty rope is that's coiled around the bodies. Truthfully, calling it a rope is very generous; it's more like a string in thickness. The fact that he ended up with a stable physical object at all is kind of a miracle, however.
Zatanna carefully examines the strangest object on the altar: a metallic totem carefully folded into the shape of an origami-like structure shaped like an 8-pointed star with a lock of black hair with a white streak woven through it. It has a rusty railroad spike impossibly driven through the center of it. Zatanna is familiar with the usage of railroad spikes in hoodoo practice, but isn’t certain what purpose it fulfills here. The totem is in the position for appealing to a deity, however. The coloring of the hair suggests that it came from a skunk, but Zatanna isn’t familiar with any deity that holds skunks sacred. Constantine flicks through random documents until he finds the relevant notes.
-’Greco-Roman curse tablets: Tablets used to ask the gods, ask the gods, place spirits, or the deceased to perform an action or persuade a person or object, typically made of lead, rolled, folded or pierced with nails. Often call upon a liminal deity. Most often for curses but can be used to help the dead find peace.’
Constantine reads Ancient Greek very well and from what he can see, the person who made this totem isn’t very fluent or using it for any of the traditional uses of a curse tablet.This just contributes to Constantine’s prevailing sense that this Working is an abomination. The information about curse tablets continues.
-"Boustrophedon is defined as a style of writing in which alternate lines of writing are reversed, with letters also written in reverse, mirror-style. " This line is cited as being from Wikipedia.
The same angular, blocky handwriting from before has written, “Rad. Like Atlantean.”
Constantine squints at the writing on the totem. Some of the symbols look like Atlantean, sure, but some are Greek, with a few Phoenician letters thrown in for spice. There are also a few symbols labeled as “Atlantean” with a trio of stylized, overlapping dots colored in next to them, but they don’t look like any Atlantean that he knows.
Zatanna decides to look at some of the less identifiable objects on the altar next. The most obvious item on the altar is a very large diamond. Branches of red and gold lightning flicker inside the crystal, looking startling like the speed force made solid. Zatanna gestures to it to show it to John, "I found what they were using as a battery!" He looks up and startles. "If that is at all similar to what I think it is, we should try to find where it is now as soon as possible. I don't want to imagine what trouble could be caused with it."
He rifles through the storm of notes quickly to confirm their suspicion.
The page that he finds just has a very rough drawing of a diamond, with red and gold glitter glued to it, and an arrow pointing to it that says, "Magic meth! Get it? Because it's both crystal and speed!"
Constantine walks over to Zatanna as he affirms that it is, in fact, a fragment of the speed force trapped in a diamond. This drastically narrows down who the creator of this ritual could be. Only one group of people has access to the speed force and the tendency to make things that are this baffling and miraculously functional. The familiarity that was lurking in the back of his mind as he read through the notes bursts into clarity; this has Red Robin’s caffeine-fueled, contingency-obsessed fingerprints all over it. He wonders where they got the diamond but realizes that, with enough control, Superboy could probably make one. It hits Constantine suddenly that Red Robin’s little friends crafted him a multiversal bomb to use as a battery. He instinctively reaches out to grab it, but of course, it isn't actually there. He can only hope that they're keeping it stable, wherever it currently is. Although, the multiverse will be gone so quickly (in a Flash, even) if they don't that he'll never have time to be horrified, or even aware of what they've done if something happens to it. So that's. Cool. To distract himself, Constantine grabs another random page of notes.
-‘Deities to petition: *Note: Neither of us is particularly religious, but this is going to require all the help we can get!
Lady Gotham: Not sure she exists but considering the people involved, she would certainly be a fitting choice. Symbolism: Bats, string of pearls’
Constantine isn't sure who this Lady Gotham is as he's never heard her mentioned before. He is intrigued as to why she would be particularly fitting. The bats seem like an obvious choice but he has no idea why a string of pearls would be used to petition this theoretical patron deity of Gotham.
-’Osiris is a solid choice as he's associated with life after death, but he's also very anti-resurrection which is a no-go. I feel like he wouldn't approve.’
Constantine has worked with Osiris before, or at least his priests. Red Robin is correct in their assumption that Osiris definitely would take umbrage.
-’Quetzalcoatl: Pro resurrection, which is nice, although no indication of soul-fidelity. Will make new life from bones, but is it the same life? Kinda sus, not interested in resurrecting some random shitface, only this particular one. Used blood as a binding agent, so that would at least vibe with what I have so far. He did self-immolate though, and that's not really the kind of vibes that I want to bring to this Working. Will only consider if no alternative.’
This surprises Constanine. Red Robin doesn’t have much need for an army. All of his little friends would already leap into Hell for him at the slightest provocation already. Constantine decides that Red Robin has finally turned to villainy, as they all assumed he would at some point, and is building an army, starting with whoever this particular “shitface” is.
-’Innana: Pro-resurrection, also associated with transformation, easy symbology with reeds and 8-pointed stars. A solid option with the bonus of the transformation aspect to help things along.’
-’Lemminkäinen: Associated with sudden violent death and a loved one carefully piecing the body back together. May work if binding also contains honey. I've certainly done enough work on this to consider him "pieced back together" although it wasn't always entirely loving.’
They cannot tell this from the spell, but the entire Working had been slightly sticky due to Red Robin coating everything in honey, just in case. The following section discusses various metals and their properties. Most listed qualities seem to be pulled from alchemical texts.
- ‘Gold and lead are typical for bindings: gold would be much easier to shape into an 8-pointed star, but lead would allow me to combine it with the curse tablet. Would that offend Innana though?
Constantine would have assumed that Innana would be offended by this travesty, but apparently She is more forgiving than he would have been had he received this abomination of an offering.
-’Brass: a metal that symbolizes dependability, protection, positivity, and abundance. It's mostly formed from copper, the metal of love. Not sure what makes it "the metal of love", though? If it's just the reddish color, that's kind of lame.’
Constantine also thinks that calling brass the "metal of love" is rather lame and tends not to have any reason to use it in his own magical Workings. Even with just a glance at the ritual, he can see that multiple metals have been used, but brass is not present. Constantine would never mix ritual metals like this. The magical properties tend to clash rather than alloy and he also just thinks that it looks tacky. When he mentions it to Zatanna, she laughs and says it’s creative.
- ’Lead: the raw material from which transformation begins. Very soft, highly malleable, already definitely in use due to the curse tablet research.’
- ’Iron: strength, power, tenacity’
- ’Gold: strength, success’
- ’Silver: receptivity, the soul’
- 'Need something else to help channel the magic into certain points of the effigy.'
- 'Some sort of pins inserted into the body? Acupuncture needles are often made with steel, silver, bone, gold, or bamboo, but can be constructed out of any elastic material.
- 'Treat the body like a circuit? Use the pins from the acupuncture needles to introduce magic to the effigy's system and guide it along its meridians by utilizing silver tracery for the receptivity. Acupuncture needles can also double their usefulness by aiding in attracting the soul to the body.'
This metal list was for acupuncture needle materials! Red Robin needs to get a significantly better organizational system for their notes. Forget the fact that they were clearly never meant for Constantine to read.
- ’Definitely using silver for the acupuncture needles set into the golem's body. Could combine with tuning forks? Tuning forks would allow me to further incorporate the use of sound into the ritual. Pins could still be used to produce sound on their own, but the fork shape makes a purer sound and this ritual needs all the help it can get.’
Constantine supposes you could sharpen tiny tuning forks and use them as acupuncture needles. However, even after reading this, he cannot possibly fathom why someone would want to. Perhaps the pins would channel the vibrations directly into the body? Regardless, every single one of them is a crime against nature and there's a lot of the sharp little things.
- ‘Consider sound healing? Some research was completed, but it seems terribly inconsistent. Honestly, this all sounds a bit nonsensical. I'll just pick a frequency for the tuning forks that sounds nice so I can vibe with it.’
Apparently, this is the place where Red Robin’s absolutely unhinged notes draw the line. Constantine would have thought he'd reached the line many magical monstrosities ago. He was honestly impressed at first by his ability to distinguish effective magical practices from pseudoscience, but the phrase, "so I can vibe with it," completely wiped out any generous/kind/nice feelings that he might have developed.
- 'While we're on the subject of sound, the main auditory component of this ritual is the playlist.'
The... playlist...? Constantine is baffled, yet again. He's never seen a ritual call for a playlist before.
- 'This ritual ties directly into emotions and requires very specific ones at certain times, so use the playlist to guide.'
The name of a Spotify playlist is scribbled underneath this section. "Bodybuilding". He calls out to Zatanna, asking if she can look up the playlist and see if any look like they might be the correct one. She begins calling out authors but none seem quite right until she says, "Wait! I found one by Red Robin! You think that could be it?" They cross-reference the songs with the ritual notes and yeah, this seems to be the right one.
John was especially baffled by Red Robin's insistence that the playlist would allow him to utilize the specific control necessary to wield a ritual like this one. He couldn’t imagine how someone could possibly dredge up their emotions that accurately on demand like that. He supposed if anyone could, it would be one of Batman’s little gremlins, but John is now more afraid of Red Robin than ever. The kid seemed like the slightest push away from villainy on a good day, and John supposes that he's glad that Red Robin chose to turn to magic over world domination. Unless, of course, Red Robin has turned to magic for world domination. A prospect that is concerningly likely considering the magical output of this ritual. Constantine can only assume that the effigy and body in the ritual are representations of a larger process because he can't fathom where all the magic would go otherwise.
While the fallout is minimal, this could have gone horribly wrong and had catastrophic consequences. Red Robin, and all of humanity by extension, simply got lucky here. John feels like he dodged a bullet that he was not even aware was aimed at him and it makes him particularly irascible.
Zatanna cheerfully exclaims, "Well! it looks like we're all set here! Red Robin clearly thought everything through and all we need to do now is to send in a magical clean-up crew!" She smiles brightly at Constantine. He does not smile back.
"No. Constantine growls. "I need to have words with Red Robin." Zatanna is confused, but shrugs it off, headed out of the building to make the phone call.
According to the Justice League rosters, Red Robin is aiding Cyborg in updating the Watchtower mainframes today, so Constantine begins making his way in that direction.
John stormed into the room, looking for a certain miscreant. Cyborg startled slightly, but Red Robin only lazily rolled his eyes toward Constantine without a hitch in his typing. There's another red-dominoed figure lying on the couch behind them, limbs splayed like the world's laziest starfish, making snarky quips and eating cookies from a Tupperware. Red Robin reaches behind himself without turning or looking to attempt to grab a cookie. The supine vigilante grabs a knife from his thigh holster and stabs at Red Robin's hand. He casually pulls his hand out of the way and returns to typing, but it's obvious that he hasn't truly given up and is merely regrouping.
"You!" He hissed in indignation upon spotting him.
Red Robin's whiteout lenses widened in (feigned) surprise as he said "Moi? Whatever could I have done to draw your ire and confrontation?"
The reclining vigilante snorts
This does not endear Red Robin to Constantine. "Where the fuck are you keeping your new zombie army?"
A cackle comes from the figure sprawled on the couch behind Red Robin. "You hear that, Baby Bird? I'm a one-man army."
"You used the firepower of a magical nuclear bomb to resurrect one asshole?" John questions.
Red Robin squints. "He's a very big asshole?" Both in terms of sheer, physical size and condensed assholery. It's one of the things Hood is proudest of. Truthfully, the power draw was because Jason had already been resurrected once. There were diminishing returns. Death hates giving up what's hers exponentially more the second time. But fuck John Constantine, Jason's death(s) are none of his goddamn business. Red Robin purses his lips thoughtfully and then shrugs. Suddenly, adder-quick, Red Robin snags a cookie from the Tupperware and shrieks in success as he leaps on top of several filing cabinets to consume his spoils of war.
"YOU LITTLE HEATHEN." The red vigilante roars. Constantine should probably figure out who that is. It might be relevant at some point. "IS NOTHING SACRED???" He continues.
John throws up his hands in exasperation. Zatanna, peeling herself away from the wall where she had been amusedly observing, high-fives Red Robin. Both leave and Hood and Red Robin exchange grins filled with chaotic mischief and unholy joy.
Constantine contemplates his next move for several days. He knows that this will probably be a severe overstep, but he isn't sure what else to do. He takes a deep breath and begins looking through the Watchtower. He finds the bat sifting through case files and emergent reports at one of the computer consoles. Now seems like as good of a time as any to bring up his concerns.
He shuffles up behind Batman and awkwardly begins, "Hey, Bats?" He only receives a noncommital grunt in response, but he hasn't expected anything else. "Uh, I need to talk with you about Red Robin?" This gets a response.
Batman's voice comes out on an even more threatening growl than usual as he whips around and demands, "Did something happen to Red Robin?"
Constantine immediately takes a step back and says, "No! No, I'm just concerned."
Batman just glares at him until he elaborates. "He uh, did some monumentally dangerous magic and I just think you should talk to him about appropriate risk assessment."
Constantine. Thinks Bruce should talk to Tim. About appropriate risk assessment. That's almost hilarious. Constantine is known for trading his soul away to multiple infernal entities and frequently dives into portals without contemplating the danger first, but sure, Tim is the one who needs to be more careful. Also, Bruce was entirely unaware that Tim could do magic. It hurts his heart to think that Tim hadn't felt like he could reveal this side of himself to Bruce. However, Bruce would rather get tossed back into the time stream than admit to Constantine that he didn't know something, particularly about one of his sons.
"What threat level would you put this magic at, then?" Bruce asks curiously.
Constantine replies, "Cataclysmic. World ending."
Batman's eyes are not visible in the cowl so Constantine can't be certain, but he could swear that Batman just rolled his eyes at him. He turns back to his work as he says, "Well. The world is still here, so it would appear that Red Robin's risk assessment was accurate."
Bruce is no longer paying attention and has already gone back to the real problem; developing a series of contingency plans with the end result of ensuring that Tim knows he isn't any less loved because he wields magic.
Bruce likes magicians perfectly fine; they're some of his most skilled colleagues on the Justice Team with varied skill sets and deep wells of knowledge. He respects them quite a bit.
In all honesty, he doesn't like magicians in Gotham because he doesn't trust the ones that aren't from the Justice League and worries they'll do damage that Batman can't fix as a mundane. However, Bruce has always trusted his sons with his city and the discovery that Tim has magic changes nothing for him.
"Whatever! I guess if Red Robin decides to scrap our entire dimension, we should just let him!"
Bruce grunts non-commitally but in his innermost thoughts? If Tim, one of his most determined and optimistic children, thinks the world is irredeemable, then they should just let him use his best judgment. Constantine storms off in a huff, yet again, and it suddenly occurs to Bruce that he never asked Constantine what the big magical Working was supposed to do. It's no matter, however, Bruce can always just ask Tim. Considering he hasn't brought it up yet or put it in any of his reports, it can't be too important.
Bruce makes a mental note to give Tim a hug when he gets back to the Manor. Many hugs. For all of his children.