Romanian Monastery, Carpathian Mountains
John Constantine stood in the ruins of what had once been a thirteenth-century chapel, checking his equipment one last time as snow began to fall through the collapsed roof. The irony wasn't lost on him—using a house of God as bait for something that fed on the souls of children. But the monastery's ancient consecration made it the perfect trap, its holy ground acting like a spiritual amplifier for whatever magic he could still muster.
"Are you sure about this plan?" Jason Blood asked from behind a crumbling pillar, his human form tense with barely contained demonic energy.
"No," John admitted, lighting what might be his last cigarette. "But it's the only one we've got. The thing's heading for the Channel, and if it gets to America..."
"It will go straight for Harry," Dr. Fate finished grimly, his golden helmet gleaming in the dim light filtering through the broken ceiling.
John nodded, taking a long drag. The past two days had been a blur of desperate preparation and increasingly grim realization. The Devourer of Gifts was too powerful for a direct assault, too adaptable for conventional banishment, and too intelligent to be fooled by simple tricks. Which left John with exactly one option: offer himself as bait and hope the combined power of Europe's remaining free magical practitioners would be enough to destroy it.
"The ward anchors are in place," announced Nightshade, materializing from a shadow that hadn't existed moments before. "But John, if this thing is as powerful as you say..."
"Then we're probably all about to die," John said matter-of-factly. "But at least we'll buy Harry time to grow up and maybe find a way to protect himself."
Arion of Atlantis emerged from the monastery's depths, water still clinging to his robes in defiance of gravity. The ancient sorcerer-king's presence made the ambient magic hum like a struck bell. "The binding circles are ready. Forty-seven separate containment spells, all keyed to activate simultaneously."
"And if they don't hold?" John asked.
"Then we improvise," Zatara said with grim humor, adjusting his stage magician's formal attire. "It's worked so far."
John was about to respond when the temperature in the ruined chapel plummeted twenty degrees in as many seconds. Frost began forming on the broken stones, and the shadows between the pillars grew deeper, more substantial, as if darkness itself was becoming a living thing.
Such dedication, came the familiar voice, seeming to emanate from the darkness itself. Such beautiful futility. Do you truly think your little trap can hold me, magicians?
The Devourer of Gifts materialized in the center of the chapel, its void-face drinking in what little light remained. John could see immediately that the entity was different—stronger, more solid, as if it had been feeding while they prepared their ambush.
"Actually," John said, flicking his cigarette toward the creature with studied nonchalance, "I was rather counting on you being too arrogant to avoid it."
The cigarette passed harmlessly through the entity's form, but as it hit the consecrated ground behind it, John spoke a single word in Enochian. Every ward in the monastery activated simultaneously, creating a cage of silver fire that should have been able to hold a demon prince.
The Devourer looked around at the blazing barriers with what might have been amusement. Clever. But insufficient.
With casual effort, it reached out and touched one of the ward lines. The silver fire turned black, then guttered out entirely. The entity began absorbing the very magic meant to contain it, growing larger and more substantial with each ward it consumed.
"Bollocks," John muttered, then louder: "Plan B!"
The battle erupted with volcanic fury.
Dr. Fate stepped forward first, golden light exploding from his form as he began weaving bindings that drew on the fundamental forces of Order itself. His hands moved in complex patterns that left burning sigils hanging in the air, each gesture creating chains of cosmic authority designed to bind chaos itself.
"By the eternal laws of Ma'at, I bind thee!" Dr. Fate intoned, his voice carrying the weight of cosmic law. Golden chains erupted from the consecrated ground, wrapping around the Devourer's limbs with the authority of universal order.
The entity tested the bindings, its void-face tilting with what might have been interest. Then it simply stepped through them, its form becoming incorporeal just long enough to pass through the chains before solidifying again.
Order and Chaos are meaningless to one who exists outside both, the Devourer said with amusement.
Jason Blood completed his transformation into Etrigan with a roar that shook the ancient stones, sulfurous flame wreathing his form as demonic power erupted from mortal constraints.
"Face me, foul monster of hunger and spite!" Etrigan bellowed, launching himself across the chapel with claws extended. "Feel the wrath of Hell's own knight!"
The demon prince struck with a force that could shatter mountains, his claws raking across the creature in a whirlwind of sulfur and flame. For a moment, the Devourer staggered, black ichor spraying from wounds that hissed and sparked.
But the damage healed almost instantly, the entity's void-substance flowing like liquid shadow to close the gaps Etrigan had torn. In retaliation, the Devourer reached out with movements too fast to follow, its fingers closing around Etrigan's throat.
Where the entity touched, demonic essence began draining away like water through a sieve. Etrigan's fiery aura guttered and dimmed as centuries of accumulated power flowed into the creature's hungering void.
Such beautiful fury, the Devourer purred, its grip tightening. Such delicious power. I think I'll save you for last.
Nightshade struck from three directions simultaneously, her mastery of dimensional space allowing her to attack from angles that shouldn't have existed. She stepped sideways into shadow and emerged from the darkness between the entity's own void-touched fingers, her hands wreathed in energy that looked like living night shot through with silver stars.
"Umbral binding," she whispered, and suddenly tendrils of pure void wrapped around the Devourer like chains forged from the spaces between dimensions.
The creature released Etrigan to deal with this new threat, but Nightshade was already gone—existing in the gaps between realities where physical attacks couldn't reach. Her assault came from everywhere and nowhere, shadow-energy striking the entity from impossible angles while she remained untouchable in the spaces between heartbeats.
Arion of Atlantis raised his hands, and the very air began to sing with power older than human civilization. When he spoke, it was in the deep harmonics of Atlantean high magic, words that made reality itself listen and obey.
"Tidal Convergence," he intoned, and suddenly the chapel floor cracked as water began seeping up from depths that hadn't seen light since the continents were young.
This wasn't ordinary water—it was the oceanic memory of Atlantis itself, carrying ten thousand years of accumulated magical knowledge. The liquid moved with purpose and intelligence, forming geometric patterns around the Devourer that pulsed with bioluminescent light.
Each drop was charged with the fury of a drowned civilization, the accumulated will of archmages whose names had been lost to history. Where the Atlantean magic touched the entity's form, steam rose and the smell of purification filled the air.
"Aegis Thalassic!" Arion commanded, and the water-runes began to contract like a living net, each strand blazing with power that had been refined over millennia.
Zatara added his own contribution to the chaos, but these weren't the simple stage illusions that entertained mundane audiences. Reality began to fold and twist around the battlefield as the master illusionist wove phantasms that challenged the very nature of existence.
Suddenly there were dozens of chapels overlapping in the same space, each showing different versions of the battle. In one, the Devourer was winning decisively. In another, it was already dead. In a third, the battle had never begun at all.
"Which reality is real?" Zatara called out, his voice echoing from multiple dimensions simultaneously. "All of them. None of them. Choose wisely, creature of void."
The entity snarled in frustration as its attacks struck illusions while real magic struck from angles that defied geometry. But even this combined assault seemed only to annoy rather than seriously threaten it.
Impressive, the Devourer said, its form beginning to expand and darken. But you still do not understand what you face.
The creature's void-substance began to pulse with a malevolent rhythm, and suddenly the temperature dropped another thirty degrees. The entity was growing, drawing power from some vast reservoir that dwarfed anything the assembled practitioners could muster.
Nightshade's dimensional bindings stretched and began to fray as the Devourer's expanding form strained against them. Arion's oceanic barriers started to boil away as the entity's presence turned purified water into something that reeked of primordial decay. Even Zatara's reality-warping illusions began to collapse as the creature's existence became too massive for deception to contain.
But then, new help arrived.
A golden portal tore open in the air above the chapel, and El Dorado descended, his form blazing with the concentrated power of a dozen lost civilizations. Behind him came Cascade, water already swirling around her in defiance of the winter cold, and Gatotkaca, his flight creating downdrafts that scattered the falling snow like a localized hurricane.
"Constantine!" El Dorado called out, his voice carrying the authority of ancient magic. "We felt the disturbance from halfway across the world!"
The Devourer paused in its assault, turning its void-face toward these new arrivals with something approaching genuine interest rather than mere predatory hunger.
More gifts? How delightful. Though I confess, I expected better coordination from—
Gatotkaca hit it like a meteor.
The hero's supernatural strength, enhanced by muscles of wire and bones of iron, struck the entity with enough force to crater the chapel floor and send shockwaves through the air that shattered every remaining window. For the first time since John had been tracking it, the Devourer of Gifts actually staggered under a physical assault.
Impossible, it hissed, dark ichor leaking from wounds that refused to heal immediately. No mortal force should be able to—
"I am no mere mortal," Gatotkaca said grimly, following up with a combination of punches that moved faster than thought. Each blow landed with the precision of a master martial artist and the force of an artillery barrage. "I am the protector of my homeland, and you threaten a child who helped save my people."
His immunity to magical draining meant the Devourer couldn't simply absorb his life force. For the first time in centuries, the entity was forced to fight something that could hurt it without being hurt in return.
Cascade's assault came from all directions at once as every source of water within miles responded to her call. She wasn't just manipulating H2O—she was commanding the very concept of purity, drawing on springs that had never known pollution, rain that had fallen through clean skies, and snow that carried the memory of untouched mountains.
"The boy called Harry fought beside us," she said, her voice carrying the sound of rushing streams and summer rain. "We do not abandon our friends."
The consecrated water struck the entity like liquid fire, each drop charged with her absolute determination to heal and cleanse. Where the blessed liquid touched the Devourer's form, its void-substance hissed and steamed as if acid was eating through it.
El Dorado's contribution was subtler but perhaps more devastating. His illusions didn't just fool the senses—they reached into the entity's perceptions and forced it to confront truths it had spent centuries avoiding.
The reflected emotions of every child it had murdered crashed over the creature like a tsunami of guilt and horror. The weight of all the potential it had stolen pressed down on its consciousness like a mountain of accusation. For the first time in its existence, the Devourer was forced to see itself as its victims had—not as a force of nature, but as a monster that chose to devour hope.
"Face what you have done," El Dorado commanded, his golden form blazing with righteous authority. "See yourself through the eyes of those you destroyed."
The psychic feedback made the entity actually stagger, its form wavering as it tried to process the emotional overload. But this was a creature that had existed for centuries by consuming innocence—it adapted quickly, hardening its consciousness against empathy like armor against arrows.
You seek to break me with sentiment? the Devourer laughed, the sound making reality itself shudder. I am beyond such weaknesses. I am hunger incarnate, need made manifest. I am the void that devours meaning itself.
The creature began to demonstrate exactly why it had survived for over centuries.
Its form expanded rapidly, growing from merely human-sized to something that dwarfed the chapel ruins. Void-substance flowed like living shadow, reaching out with dozens of grasping tendrils that struck at every practitioner simultaneously.
Nightshade found herself pulled from between dimensions as the entity's growing mass began to occupy multiple planes of existence at once. Her shadow-manipulation, which should have made her untouchable, suddenly became a liability as the Devourer's void-nature allowed it to attack her through the very darkness she used for protection.
Arion's oceanic barriers, powered by the accumulated magic of Atlantis itself, began to boil away as the creature's presence turned blessed water into something that reeked of primordial decay. Ten thousand years of magical refinement crumbled like sand castles before a tsunami of raw hunger.
Even Gatotkaca's supernatural strength proved insufficient as the entity grew to match his power level. When his fists struck the creature now, they met resistance that jarred his immortal frame and sent painful shockwaves up his arms. Worse, the Devourer's expanding form began to wrap around him like a living shroud, attempting to drain his life force through simple contact.
I have fed on the dreams of centuries, the creature continued, its voice now carrying enough power to crack stone with each syllable. I have consumed the potential of thousands. Your magic, impressive though it may be, is merely another course in an eternal feast.
Dr. Fate's cosmic bindings began to corrode and weaken as the entity's presence disrupted the fundamental forces of Order. Golden chains that should have been unbreakable developed stress fractures as chaos-tainted void-energy ate away at their structure like magical acid.
Etrigan's hellfire guttered and died as something older and hungrier than Hell itself turned its full attention to the demon prince. Centuries of accumulated infernal power began flowing out of the bound demon like blood from an opened artery.
Zatara's reality-warping illusions collapsed entirely as the Devourer's existence became too massive and too alien for deception to contain. The overlapping realities he'd created shattered like glass mirrors, leaving only the stark truth of their desperate situation.
Cascade found her purified water being corrupted faster than she could cleanse it. Springs that had run clean for millennia suddenly tasted of decay and despair. The entity's mere presence was poisoning the very concept of purity within a growing radius.
El Dorado's empathic assault, which had momentarily staggered the creature, now seemed only to feed its growth. Each emotion it was forced to confront—guilt, horror, shame—was consumed and transformed into more fuel for its expansion.
John watched in growing horror as eight of the world's most powerful practitioners began to lose ground against something that was growing stronger with each passing moment. The Devourer wasn't just adapting to their attacks—it was incorporating their techniques into its own arsenal, learning and evolving with each exchange.
But there was one thing the entity hadn't counted on: John Constantine's willingness to pay any price to protect what mattered to him.
As the creature prepared to deliver what would surely be killing blows against his friends—his family—John stepped into the center of his prepared ritual circle and began the most dangerous magic of his career.
"Oi!" he shouted, his voice cutting through the chaos like a blade. "Over here, you parasitic bastard!"
The Devourer's void-face turned toward him with predatory interest. Ah, the summoner finally reveals himself. Do you seek to bargain, little magician? To trade your pathetic life for a few more moments of futile resistance?
"Not exactly," John said, beginning to speak words in languages that predated human civilization. "More like giving you a taste of your own medicine."
The phrases that flowed from his lips came from sources he'd sworn never to use—concepts drawn from the spaces between thoughts, words that described the dissolution of existence itself. Each syllable cost him years of his life, and he could feel his essence being drawn into the working like fuel into a cosmic furnace.
"Solvere vinculum animae!" John shouted, his voice cracking as the spell began consuming him from within. "Liberare quod captum est! Reducere ad nihilum!"
The words of unmaking struck the Devourer like a cosmic sledgehammer. For the first time in their battle, the entity's attention snapped fully toward John—not with hunger or amusement, but with something approaching genuine fear.
What are you doing? it demanded, its massive form beginning to waver as John's spell attacked the fundamental bindings that held it together.
"What I should have done from the beginning," John replied, blood streaming from his eyes as the unraveling magic tore through his body like liquid fire. "Ending you permanently."
The effect was immediate and catastrophic. The entity began to collapse in on itself, its stolen power finally breaking free from centuries of imprisonment. The air filled with ghostly images as the Devourer's victims found peace at last—dozens of children's faces, their expressions serene as they were finally released from their torment.
But the spell was killing John as surely as it was destroying the entity. He could feel his life force being consumed by the unraveling, drawn into the dissolution as necessary fuel for the working. This wasn't magic that mortals were meant to wield—it was the fundamental force that separated existence from void, and using it required offering one's own essence as payment.
If I fall, the Devourer hissed with its dying breath, pouring the last of its malevolent will into a death-curse aimed directly at John's heart, I take you with me, Constantine.
That's when eight of the world's most powerful practitioners demonstrated what true collaborative magic could accomplish.
Nightshade abandoned all pretense of dimensional subtlety and stepped fully into baseline reality, her hands blazing with shadow-energy as she began channeling dimensional force directly into John. "I won't let you die," she said grimly, using her mastery of space-time to distribute the spell's cost across multiple planes of existence.
Arion spoke words in Atlantean that made the ocean itself respond, ten thousand years of accumulated magical knowledge flowing into John like a tide of pure life force. "The sea remembers all who protect the innocent," the ancient sorcerer-king intoned, his power wrapping around John like protective armor.
Gatotkaca simply picked John up bodily and held him steady, his supernatural constitution allowing him to absorb physical damage that would have torn a normal person apart. "You saved my people. Now I save you."
Cascade surrounded them both with healing water drawn from every pure source within a hundred miles, each drop carrying restorative energy that fought against the spell's consumption of John's essence. "Family protects family," she whispered, her magic working to remind John's body what wholeness felt like.
El Dorado's illusions became reality-shaping as he created pockets of space where the laws of magic worked differently—where unmaking spells didn't have to consume their casters, where hope was stronger than entropy, where John Constantine could survive the impossible through sheer bloody-minded determination.
Dr. Fate channeled the full authority of Order itself, golden energy flowing into John to replace what the spell was draining away. "The cosmic balance demands his survival," came Nabu's voice through Kent Nelson's form, cosmic power stabilizing John's consciousness as reality rewrote itself around them.
Zatara's contribution was perhaps the most crucial—his illusions convinced the universe that what was happening was not just possible but inevitable. "The greatest magic is making the impossible seem natural," he said with a strained smile, his phantasms making John's survival a fundamental truth of reality.
And Etrigan, perhaps surprising everyone present, spoke his own words of power in the rhyming verse that defined his nature:
"This man must live, and that is true,So let Hell's power see him through.For as a demon, I've a pact,To stand and fight, and not fall back."
The demon prince's contribution was raw vitality drawn from the deepest wells of infernal power—not corruption, but the pure life force that existed at the heart of Hell itself, the energy that allowed demons to exist across eternity.
Together, their eight different magical traditions and fighting styles achieved something that should have been impossible according to every law of magical theory: they completed the unmaking while keeping its caster alive.
The Devourer of Gifts imploded with a sound like the universe taking a deep breath. The psychic shockwave knocked everyone to their knees, ancient stones cracking and falling as the chapel finally surrendered to the forces that had been unleashed within its walls.
When the echoes faded and the dust settled, the ancient evil was gone as if it had never existed. In its place, a profound sense of peace settled over the ruined monastery—not just the absence of malevolence, but the active presence of hope restored to the world.
John Constantine lay motionless on the consecrated ground, his breathing so shallow it was barely perceptible. His face was pale as parchment, and if not for the faint rise and fall of his chest, he could have been mistaken for dead.
"John!" Zatara rushed to his side, checking for signs of life with spells designed to detect the faintest spark of consciousness.
"He lives," Arion confirmed, kneeling beside them with the grave authority of someone who had witnessed the rise and fall of civilizations. "But the unraveling spell consumed most of his life force. He requires healing beyond what any single practitioner can provide."
"Then we continue working together," Nightshade said simply, her form solidifying completely as she focused all her dimensional abilities on the task of healing. "He saved all our lives tonight. The least we can do is return the favor."
For the next hour, as snow continued to fall through the broken roof and the ancient monastery settled around them with groans of stressed stone, eight of the world's most powerful magical practitioners worked in unprecedented collaboration.
They shared their life force with surgical precision, Arion's oceanic magic providing the foundation while Nightshade's dimensional abilities ensured the energy flowed without causing dangerous feedback. Cascade's purified water carried healing properties through John's system while El Dorado's illusions convinced his body that recovery was not just possible but assured.
Dr. Fate provided the cosmic stability needed to prevent John's magical core from burning out entirely, while Etrigan contributed the raw vitality necessary to restart systems that had nearly shut down completely. Zatara wove everything together with illusions that made the healing process feel natural rather than miraculous.
Gatotkaca served as an anchor point, his supernatural constitution allowing him to channel and distribute the massive amounts of magical energy without being overwhelmed. The Indonesian hero's strength became a foundation upon which the others could build their collaborative healing.
When John finally opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was a circle of exhausted but relieved faces looking down at him—people who had risked everything to fight beside him, who had refused to let him die alone in a forgotten monastery.
"Well," John croaked, accepting the cigarette El Dorado offered him with hands that shook only slightly. "That was thoroughly unpleasant."
"The entity is destroyed," Dr. Fate confirmed, his voice carrying the certainty of cosmic authority. "Its victims are at peace. And Harry Potter is safe."
"All the children of the world are safe from that particular evil," Arion added, his ancient eyes holding depths of satisfaction. "The hunger that devoured hope has been ended forever."
John nodded weakly, too exhausted to feel the relief he knew should be overwhelming him. But looking around at the faces of the people who had become more than allies—who had become family in the truest sense of the word—he felt something else entirely.
Hope.
"Right then," he said softly, still too weak to sit up without assistance. "Someone want to explain how we're getting out of this place? Because I'm fairly certain the local authorities are going to have questions about all the screaming and supernatural explosions."
"Leave that to me," El Dorado said with a tired smile, golden light already beginning to weave around them.
As his unlikely rescuers began making arrangements for evacuation and recovery, John Constantine allowed himself to believe—for the first time in weeks—that he might actually live to keep his promise to Harry Potter.
The hunt was over. The monster was dead. And against all odds, they had won.
But more than that, they had proven something the magical world had forgotten: that true power came not from individual strength, but from the willingness to stand together against the darkness, regardless of the cost.
It was a lesson that would serve them all well in the battles yet to come.