Epilogue: Disasters

"...total gridlock in downtown Metropolis after a traffic accident in which two vehicles collided; both drivers are reported to have been engaging in sexual acts at the time, no injuries reported..."

John Constantine made a mark on the map and switched the station on the radio.

"...total recall of the most popular brand of condoms after widespread reports of ripping and tearing..."

He made another mark. Switched it again.

"...scandal at Metropolis University, as thirty-seven female members of the anime club seduced the captain of the football team as part of a pregnancy pact. The male student involved had to be hospitalized, but was reportedly not pressing charges..."

A third mark.

"What are you doing?" Zatanna asked. "And why are we doing it in a strip club at nine in the morning?"

She glowered at the stripper, a young black woman that was somewhat portly, wearing nothing but a g-string, tassels, and clear heels, lazily humping the poll for the nearly non-existent clientele. A part of Zatanna wanted to climb up onto the stage and show her how it was done.

"Scrying, love," Constantine said, sipped at his beer, and made a face. "Not going to find our demonic baby mama by going out and talking to people, now are we? First we need to know where to look. Get an idea of where we're looking, exactly."

The magician flicked the dial on the radio again, apparently at random.

"...pandas actually engaging in sex. This is the first time in three years the animals have copulated despite unceasing encouragement by staff..."

Constantine marked the Metropolis Zoo with a little red X. The map before him was covered with X's, but to Zatanna's eyes, there were definitely some sort of pattern...or at least clustering. There was something off about it though.

Constantine tapped on the paper with two fingers, spread as far apart as they could go. The witch quickly saw that he was correct. The little red X's seemed to emanate out from those two spots, with fewer examples further out, more clustered in around them. It was the patterns of interference that had confused the issue.

"So there are two centers?" She said.

"One. But it's moving. Spends most of the day here," he tapped a spot in downtown Metropolis. "And the nights here." He tapped the other spot, a couple of inches away...barely a few miles. Carefully, the British magician consulted the map's legend.

"So my guess is we need to look for a pregnant woman that works at the Daily Planet," and lives at this apartment building. He checked his watch. "Whoever it is, she should be at work now. Fancy having a shufti around her apartment while she's out and about?"

Zatanna found her attention caught by the stripper. The black woman had noticed her, and heels planted on the floor, had begun to gyrate on the pole more earnestly, maintaining eye contact. As the witch watched, the black woman leaned forward and licked the pole.

"Z?" John's voice shook her out of her reverie.

"Right, yes," she said, standing up. "Let's get out of here."

It was warmer on the street. The sun was shining. Zatanna told herself that was why the women around her were showing more skin, wearing tighter, more revealing clothes. Not something she would have normally noticed...except it seemed to affect every woman. Even the older women were obviously not wearing bras, their nipples keenly visible poking out from their shirts. The businesswoman in the suit and stockings had a trickle of something running down her leg. The young mother pushing the stroller had the vacant smile and mussy hair of a woman who had just been fucked good and hard. Two muscular young men were walking hand in hand, blushing, in their newly-bought rainbow-colored pride shirts.

"Disaster," Constantine said. He sucked on a Silk Cut, those nasty British cigarettes he smoked so assiduously.

"What?" Zatanna said, distracted. She'd opted for her usual superheroing outfit today—fishnets and heels, a long-tailed coat and white bustier, white gloves and tophat—and Constantine sweltered in his London trenchcoat over a rumpled bespoke suit, blue pinstripes, black tie. Like he had just stepped out of the fog on the banks of the River Thames, and not out of a strip bar where the three main dancers were named Candi, Candee, and Kandy.

"From forth the fatal loins of these two foes, a pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life," Constantine quoted. "That's what 'disaster' means. To be born under a bad star, a bad star-sign. Astrology."

They picked their way through the crowd, Constantine seeming to know where they were headed. Zatanna kept pace with him easily, but found herself...off, somehow. She wasn't sure why, exactly. This morning she had been afraid her period had started early, but it wasn't that. "Aunt Flo" wasn't due to visit for two weeks.

Maybe it's just because it's him, Zatanna admitted to herself as she stole a glance at John Constantine.

They had been together once, and she had known him for a rogue even then. Yet he had always been faithful, after his own fashion, or at least she had never caught him at it, though she knew he could be a tremendous flirt, and had even been married at least once, to a woman scandalously younger than himself. Her father hadn't approved of the relationship, predicting it would bring her nothing but disaster...but maybe that was part of what had driven her into his arms. John Constantine, the ultimate Bad Boy.

Of course, Zatanna was older and wiser now.

"I didn't think you believed in astrology, horoscopes, all that kind of thing." She said.

"There's a greater gravitational attraction between the midwife's hands and a baby than between a baby and any planet you care to name," Constantine said. "But it's belief, innit? All those people believe in the stars influencing your future, your love life, that kind of thing. It works its way down deep into cycles. All this stuff going on now...you notice nobody's getting hurt? Like, accidents are happening, but there's been little bloodshed. I checked the crime reporters this morning, reports of **** and domestic **** are actually down the last month."

Zatanna considered that as they came up to an apartment building. Constantine flashed the doorman a smile, and the old man returned a stone-faced look. They kept walking, turning the nearest corner.

"Plenty of women don't report that sort of thing though," Zatanna pointed out. "Or maybe the police just aren't logging them? Could be perfectly human corruption."

"Maybe," he said. "But I think...well, maybe his nibs Dr. Fate and Madame Xanadu and their lot haven't quite grasped the nature of the situation. Maybe we're not looking at hell on Earth, not exactly.

A side-door was ajar, held open by a wadded-up copy of The Daily Planet. Constantine held a finger to his lips and they practically tip-toed up to it. There were animal noises coming from behind a nearby dumpster. Zatanna felt a heat rise to her face as the woman's sensual moans increased in volume, as John opened the door and ushered her in.

"What are you saying, John?" Zatanna said as they stared around at some service-space adjacent to a loading bay. Constantine looked left and right, and decided on going left. Zatanna followed him and they found themselves at a freight elevator.

"What I'm saying, love," Constantine said. "Is there's a part of this we're not seeing yet. Maybe we shouldn't go in, spells-ablaze, eh? Take our time. Scope things out."

They walked into the elevator, and Constantine hesitated as his hand hovered over the button.

"What's your bra size again, love?"

"36DD," Zatanna said, without thinking...and then felt her cheeks burn as he tapped the button for the 36th floor.

He'd turned his head to hide his smile, but the witch knew it was there.

"Same as I remember, then," he said.

"What about you?" she asked as the elevator began to rise.

"What about me what, love?"

"Still as long as you were back then? Old age hasn't made your Cockney cock shrink?"

"I'm not Cockney, hen. I'm from Liverpool..."

He turned to her...and their eyes met and held each other. The air in the elevator seemed still, yet electric. Like the eye of the hurricane. There was a clunk as the elevator ground to an unexpected halt, the lights blinked out and on again...and in that space of just a second, John Constantine had his cock out, all seven inches of it, the pants falling around his ankles...

Then she was on him, moving her underwear to the side, his cock ripping through her fishnets, and as he stabbed upwards, deep into her pussy John Constantine came like a virgin, blowing his load the moment he was inside...

"!drah teG" she commanded, and his whole body stiffened as she started to move.

His hands pulling down her bustier, **** to get at her tits, and she was moving, a burning need like nothing she'd experienced. She needed to cum. Not wanted to, not would like to, not a little wet or a little horny but absolutely swamped down there, pussy burning, slamming her ass down, knees digging into the cold metal floor of the elevator as his nicotine-stained teeth latched onto one fat pink nipple, and Circe remembered, very faintly, that she wasn't on regular birth control anymore and this was the middle of her cycle...

"Cycles!" she gasped, remembering Constantine's words from before. "John...what you were saying earlier...it's fertility magic! Love magic! The whole building must be rife with it. We've got to...got to find the source..."

He grunted, hands hugging her desperately to him as he exploded again. She'd never known him to be such a quick shot, but her spell kept him hard, even if there was nothing left in his balls.

As a grown woman, Zatanna knew that she should climb off of him. He'd already cum inside her twice.

As an experienced magician, Zatanna had no doubt she could focus her willpower and resist the magic that was making her slam her cunt down on his stiff prick like a carpenter driving a nail into a board.

Yet Zatanna knew that the damage, if any, was already done...and she was warming to the idea of letting nature take its course, something that had nothing to do with the magic permeating the building. Beneath her, John Constantine shook, his facade of cool collapsing as the very human charms of her own voluptuous body held him in a thrall stronger than either Zatanna's spell and the fertility magic that had drawn them together.

"John Constantine," she said. "If you knock me up, you had better take responsibility!"

She grinned fiercely at the slightly wide-eyed glance of horror on his face. His stubble scratched at her breast, but she didn't care. Her hips rose and fell, and Constantine had no power to throw her off before she was finished.

Zatanna still hadn't cum yet. The demon and her babymama could wait. They weren't the only star-crossed lovers in this building...