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The dreams came like fragments of broken glass, cutting through Constantine's sleep with surgical precision. He'd been experiencing them for the past week since his encounter with the mysterious stranger in Strange's Mirror Dimension vivid flashes of memories that felt both intimately familiar and impossibly distant.
Rain on cobblestones. The smell of cigarettes and gin. A woman's laugh echoing through the corridors of the House of Mystery.
Constantine jolted awake in the narrow bed of the fleabag hotel he'd been calling home, sweat beading on his forehead despite the October chill seeping through the cracked windows. The neon sign from the adult bookstore across the street painted his room in alternating shades of red and blue, creating shadows that seemed to move with a life of their own.
"Bollocks," he muttered, reaching for the cigarettes on his nightstand. His hands were shaking not from fear, but from the effort of trying to hold onto memories that slipped away like smoke the moment he grasped for them.
The lighter's flame illuminated his face in the darkened room, highlighting the new lines of exhaustion that had appeared over the past several days. Sleep had become a battleground where his subconscious fought to reconcile two sets of experiences that shouldn't be able to coexist in the same mind.
A younger version of himself standing in a circle of salt and iron, facing down something with too many teeth and eyes like burning coals. But the setting was wrong instead of a London basement, he was in what looked like a New York subway tunnel.
Zatanna's voice, warm with affection: "You know, John, for someone who claims to hate magic, you're remarkably good at it." But she was wearing different clothes, speaking with a slightly different accent, as if she were familiar yet fundamentally changed.
Constantine took a long drag of his cigarette, trying to make sense of the fragmentary images. The dreams felt like memories, but memories of events that had never happened or had happened to someone else wearing his face.
A knock at the door interrupted his brooding. Three short raps followed by two long ones a pattern he'd established with Nergal to distinguish the demon's visits from potential threats. Though given recent events, the distinction was becoming increasingly academic.
"Come in," Constantine called, not bothering to get dressed. He was wearing boxers and a stained undershirt, but modesty had never been high on his list of priorities.
Nergal materialized through the wall rather than using the door, his massive form somehow managing to fit in the cramped hotel room without destroying the furniture. The demon had been keeping a low profile since their encounter with Strange, but Constantine could sense his growing restlessness.
"You look like death warmed over," Nergal observed, settling into the room's only chair with surprising delicacy. "The dreams are getting worse, aren't they?"
Constantine studied his unlikely ally. Over the past week, their relationship had evolved from mutual hostility to something approaching cautious partnership. Nergal was still a dangerous predator who'd tormented Constantine for decades, but he was also the only being in this reality who truly understood what Constantine was going through.
"They're not just dreams," Constantine said finally. "They're memories. But not mine at least, not from the life I remember living."
"Explain."
Constantine swung his legs out of bed and walked to the window, looking down at the late-night stragglers wandering the Village's narrow streets. A couple stumbled past, drunk and laughing, their voices carrying up through the thin glass. For a moment, he envied their simplicity the luxury of living in a world where the biggest threat was a hangover.
"I remember Newcastle," Constantine said. "I remember Astra, the botched exorcism, two years in Ravenscar. I remember you, our first meeting, the way you tainted my blood." He turned to face the demon. "But I also remember other versions of those events. Versions where I made different choices, where the consequences played out differently."
Nergal's golden eyes narrowed. "That's impossible. Even across dimensional boundaries, there can only be one true sequence of events for any given soul."
"Unless," Constantine said, pieces of understanding clicking into place, "we're not dealing with dimensional displacement at all. Unless what happened to me was something else entirely."
The demon leaned forward, intrigued despite himself. "What are you suggesting?"
Constantine lit another cigarette, buying time to organize thoughts that felt like they were scattered across multiple realities. "What if I didn't just get pulled into this universe? What if I died in our reality and was reborn here reincarnated with fragments of memory from my previous life intact?"
The words hung in the air like incense. Nergal's expression shifted from skepticism to something approaching wonder.
"Reincarnation across universal boundaries," the demon mused. "It's theoretically possible, but the cosmic forces required would be..." He trailed off, his golden eyes widening. "The stranger in the maze. He said he arranged for you to be here."
"Exactly." Constantine began pacing the small room, his mind racing. "Someone or something with enough power to manipulate death itself wanted me in this reality. The question is why."
"And the dreams?"
"Memories bleeding through from my previous incarnation. But not just memories experiences, knowledge, the accumulated wisdom of twenty years fighting supernatural threats in a completely different cosmic framework." Constantine stopped pacing and fixed Nergal with an intense stare. "Which means I might know things about magic, about demons, about the nature of reality itself that don't exist in this universe yet."
Nergal was quiet for a long moment, processing the implications. Finally, he spoke, his voice carrying new undertones of respect. "If you're right, Johnny, then you're not just an anomaly you're a weapon. Someone's secret gambit against whatever's coming."
Constantine nodded grimly. "The question is whether I'm meant to be the trigger or the target."
A new sound cut through their conversation a low, melodic chanting that seemed to be coming from somewhere far below their feet. Both Constantine and Nergal tensed, recognizing the harmonic patterns of a summoning ritual.
"That's not random street magic," Constantine said, grabbing his trench coat from the chair where he'd thrown it. "Someone's calling up something big."
Nergal rose to his feet, his form already beginning to shift into a more combat-ready configuration. "The harmonics are wrong for local practitioners. This feels like..."
"Like someone who knows the old ways," Constantine finished. "Someone who's been studying magic that doesn't belong in this reality."
They made their way down to the hotel's lobby, past the disinterested desk clerk who was too busy watching late-night television to notice a British occultist and his demonic companion. The chanting was coming from the subway tunnels beneath the Village, carried up through grates and manholes with crystalline clarity.
"We need to stop this," Constantine said as they reached street level. "If someone's mixing dimensional frameworks without proper safeguards "
His words were cut off as the street lights began to flicker in a specific pattern three short flashes, two long ones, repeated over and over. The same pattern Nergal had used to knock on his door.
"Someone's sending a message," the demon observed.
Constantine felt the blood drain from his face as he recognized the implications. "Not just any message. That's the calling pattern for a Laughing Magician. Someone knows exactly what I am."
The chanting below grew louder, and Constantine could feel power building in the air around them raw, undisciplined energy that threatened to tear holes in reality itself. Whoever was conducting the ritual had serious magical knowledge but no understanding of Marvel's cosmic safeguards.
"We need to get down there," Constantine said, already moving toward the nearest subway entrance. "If they're trying to summon something using techniques from our reality "
"The dimensional barriers won't hold," Nergal finished. "Whatever they call up, it won't be bound by local rules."
They descended into the subway system, following the sound of chanting through dimly lit tunnels that reeked of decades of urban decay. The harmonics grew stronger as they went deeper, and Constantine could feel his enhanced senses picking up traces of sulfur and ozone that suggested serious mystical workings.
Finally, they reached an abandoned section of track where the ritual was taking place. What Constantine saw made his blood run cold.
Five figures in hooded robes stood around a circle that had been carved directly into the concrete platform, their hands weaving patterns in the air that Constantine recognized from his fragmentary dreams. At the center of the circle lay a complex mandala drawn in what looked like human blood, its geometry speaking of binding and summoning across impossible distances.
But it was the figure leading the ritual that made Constantine's heart skip a beat. Even with the hood up, he could see enough of the woman's face to recognize features that belonged in his dreams sharp cheekbones, dark eyes that held depths of knowledge and loss.
It was Zatanna Zatara. But not the Zatanna from his memories. This version was harder, more desperate, wearing the kind of expression that came from years of fighting a losing battle against forces beyond comprehension.
"John Constantine," she called out without turning around, her voice carrying across the abandoned platform with supernatural clarity. "I was wondering when you'd finally show up."
The ritual circle flared to life with eldritch fire, and Constantine realized they were too late to stop whatever she was summoning. But as the dimensional barriers began to weaken, he caught a glimpse of what was trying to push through from the other side.
It wasn't a demon. It wasn't an angel. It was something far worse something that wore his own face and smiled with the cold satisfaction of a predator that had finally cornered its prey.
The First of the Fallen had found him. And this time, there would be no escape.
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