Archive of Our Own ^beta

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Dear Sir Mister Robert Gadling of Southwark, London, England, Europe, The Waking World, This Current Reality, you are here, esq.

I am writing to tell you that I am not writing to you. That would be not allowed, and Destiny has told me that I shouldn’t. But Destruction says it would be mad to try, and that Dream will be mad if I do, so that seems alright by me.

My brother is called Dream, and you are his best friend that he didn’t make himself. He doesn’t like it when people say things like that, because he is a grumpy pants and also was very hurt in the past when he had different friends, but you are and that is important to know. He is the King of Dreams, and that’s a lot to keep in your head, so his head is very big and probably should be popped or he’ll float away on his own self-importance.

My big sister Death made it so that you have to ask for her gift rather than getting it automatically like everyone else, so that Dream would have a friend who could keep his feet on the ground. Except we think he hasn’t realised yet. You meet up with him for dates every 100 years, which is a big commitment. Barnabas says they’re probably not dates like that, except they are really if Dream would stop being so silly about serious things and serious about silly things, because it gets him all mixed up in his head and that’s my job. We are one big happy family, except when we are not.

I am telling you all this because I think he has not because he likes knowing things other people don’t and mysteries and secrets and all that kind of thing. Which is very silly because sharing is caring and you can’t have fun with people if they don’t know what you’re being fun about. It’s rude to laugh at people for not knowing something you know so you shouldn’t do that. Be told.

So I am writing to you to tell you I am not writing to you, and that Oneiros (which is a difficult word, isn’t it? It’s an old name for Dream, and I think it sounds like a rude word, but I have used the word Dream a lot in this letter and it’s beginning to seem like not a word any more like it’s wearing thin so I will use his other names now besides you know who I’m talking about now anyway) has not got himself trapped in a bauble for sixty whole years and then a bit more, and totally doesn’t need your help to get out. Destiny says he’ll get out eventually and it serves him right besides, and that you should find a New Inn when Lord Morpheus does get out of his fishbowl, because your old one will be gone by then. I think that’s mean, and Despair and Desire say Oneiros is losing the Dreaming and it will be theirs before long, and that would be horrid I think for everyone and especially for me and you and other people.

I would try and help Kai’ckul, even if he is mean, but I can’t go near where he is I can’t I can’t I can’t I can’t I can’t I can’t I can’t. I can’t even say or write or draw or dance where he is because they would know and Wizards think I am crunchy and want to eat me with Brie, and if he had two of us it would be doubly worse than one. I do not wish to be eated Sir Mister Gadling, so I am writing to you who is sensible enough to probably not get et.

So I have told you a lot about nothing and nothing about a lot and this message will explode in sixty seconds except not a fiery explosion, it will just turn into glitter but fiery explosions sound more fun, except if you’re caught up in them I suppose, that wouldn’t be fun at all.

Yours eternally,

HRH, styled Lady Delirium by her own design, Last of the Endless, who was and is a Delight.

Well, that’s as clear as mud.

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Hob looks at the slightly damp pieces of paper and realises they are starting to smoke at the corners. They smoulder and shimmer for a second longer, the pages swelling like seed pods before bursting into a cloud of, yes, multicoloured glitter that smells like a sweetshop’s sweepings.

In the remains is a chunky opal pendant, engraved around the edge of the silver bevel with runes that seem to wriggle under his eyes.

What, as they say, the actual fuck.

The letter was delivered by a dog even - a big red galumph of a thing that pushed a soggy envelope into his hand and bounded off again before he’d had a chance to react.

Hob’s life has been weird for a long time - before he met his stranger for the first time perhaps - but this doesn’t just take the biscuit, it runs off with the plate, the packet and the whole damn factory.

Working on the assumption that this is real and that he didn’t accidentally spike his tea with the latest in ergot poisoning: Dream? His Stranger is the King of Dreams? And he’s had some sort of misfortune but his siblings can’t or won’t help. Wizards may or may not be involved, with or without brie.

(Is he sensible enough to not get et? Eaten by what? Sensible by whose standards? Is that truly a question he wants an answer to?)

He’s heard stories of the Endless, but he’s heard them in the same way you hear stories about Isis and Osiris, the Greek Muses, Thor, the Tooth Fairy or Father Christmas. But it’s been best part of 600 years and he’s not dead yet, so maybe The Sandman really does meet him for drinks once a century, why the fuck not. Maybe he’ll go flamenco dancing with Old Father Thames next. Dig up King Arthur and tell him to get his arse in gear.

Thank the Lord that he was already on his way to the pub, because he needs a drink to process this.

Okay. So.

They didn’t part on the best of terms the last time. But Hob’s not petty (much), and if this is to be believed, his Stranger, whose name is apparently Dream, is in difficulties with no one to help. Or so his family think, at least. He’s got a bad feeling about this whole situation, a black weight sitting in his stomach since he finished the letter. In such a situation, what would it harm to have a nose around, see if there’s any meat on this bone? What else are friends (hah!) for?

The insinuation of the involvement of wizards seems like the closest approximation to a lead. Or mages, alchemists, magicians, sorcerers or whatever they’re calling themselves this week. Hob has avoided mixing with wizards for as long as he’s known they actually exist - before and after he was tried for witchcraft. But you hear familiar names if you hang around long enough, and a bit of digging gets him chatting with Lady Tyburn and Lady Fleet, and a few pointers for his apparent quest.

According to the Ladies, English wizardry has been fading. He suspects most of the recent wizards have been more powered by chemistry than actual arcane capacity. If they’ve trapped a spirit, it’s probably vodka in a hash pipe. The flower children have all grown up, got proper jobs.

Going back further, Blavatsky was a piss-artist and Crowley was a hack, but Constantine’s family is still trouble, though they’ve fallen far from Lady Joanna’s time. And while the latest scion definitely has the knack - the last time he’d seen her, Mad Hettie had made a very specific and very pointed point of telling him that the kid had cursed his own father to a slow death, and that he’d con his way out of hell itself one day - right now, John Constantine ‘sings’ in a godawful punk band called Mucus Membrane, so is probably not holding The King of Dreams in his tour van.

Burgess? Lots of rumours about the previous Burgess, once you look at them in a line. They said The Lord Magus, the Daemon King Burgess had a devil trapped in the basement of his mansion. That his mistress had run off with a bag of sand - his greatest treasure - and the Major-domo and neither had ever been heard of again. That he’d bought his mansion, Fawney Rig, from a previous Constantine, because of something to do with ley lines, and had cheated the poor drunkard in the deal.

The Magus died 20-odd years ago, and his son inherited the estate. Had been trying to play up to his father’s legacy, but that’s falling apart again. The hip young crowd aren’t impressed by a monkey that doesn’t dance. But the gossip from the Ladies says there’s still a fiend in Fawney Rig.

Hob wishes it was Constantine. It’d be so much easier to break into whatever squat he’s currently occupying, than an an armed and armoured stately home.

Except - maybe that’s a way in. This is at least a 2-man job, and besides, Burgess and Burgess Minor surely had all kinds of protections and wards. Having someone with some arcane capacity might be useful, and from what little he knows of the kid, Constantine seems like the sort who’d get a kick out of fucking up the ancestral family pile.

Chapter Text

Hob considers a clever way and a sneaky way to reach Constantine, and decides with all predictability, on the straightforward route. He’s been off-balance since the letter, and dealing with The Ladies has put him further on edge, made him feel like Matthew Hopkins is going to crawl up out of hell and throw him in the Thames for witchcraft. Again.

He pays a friend of a friend to pull Constantine’s latest arrest record (last Tuesday, drunk and disorderly behaviour), gets the address of his current squat, waits until he knows the little fucker is both in and awake, and knocks on the door.

“Wot?” The door is slammed open and the word is spat at him by a lanky blond man with infected piercings, a black eye and undoubtedly a massive hangover. The air from the squat stinks of sex, unwashed bodies, spilled beer and stale piss. Hob can just about see there’s a couple of people passed out in a pile on the mattress behind him, but Constantine is at least dressed, in mangy jeans, string vest and work boots. Kids these days, what do they look like?

“John Constantine, right? I’ve got a job you might be interested in.”

“Con-job, and I don’t want whatever it is you’re peddling - what is this anyway? Job Centre do house calls now?” Kid is pulling his best Sid Vicious face, a sneer as sharp and sour as broken glass. In another time, Hob might even take it seriously.

“Yeah, I’m sure that’s what your sister calls you. And no, it’s a bit more…specialist that that. There’s an old man with power he shouldn’t have, and a someone imprisoned who shouldn’t be. An old friend - well, I say friend - of the Laughing Lady.”

That pulls Constantine up a bit, the slightest pause at the mention of his great-whatever-grandmother. Kid probably thinks he’s not shown a hair of reaction, but Hob has got good at reading people. “Dunno what the fuck you’re talking about, Worzel Gummidge, I ain’t interested”

Ah, already at the personal insults stage of the conversation are we? Hob knows he’s got a face for folk music, while this thin streak of piss is absolutely à la mode, but there’s no good in pointing it out like that. The kid, with just enough skill to be arrogant about it, not enough sense to come in out of the rain, and skittish as a kicked cat besides is absolutely interested, but needs something more. Something physical.

The letter is gone, probably for the best, but he still has the opal. The Ladies refused to even look at it, wouldn’t let him pull it out of his pocket. Might be just the ticket here. Of course, if it isn’t, he’ll have thrown away an opal the size of his thumb and his least-worst option for arcane backup.

He pulls out the amulet, flicks it at the kid’s head. Constantine catches it with an admirably degree of dexterity, given the state of him. Stares fixedly at the inscription, before looking at Hob with a calculatingly sober stare.

“I’m not hiring for an apprentice fucking bricklayer. You know you’ve got the knack, you know what your family are, and you know you’re interested in at least hearing more about the work I’m offering. Put a fucking jacket on and let’s go to the pub, the smell off your friends is making my eyes burn”

Constantine looks at Hob’s face, the opal and back to his face, running the odds. “Alright. I ain’t promising nothin’, but I’ll hear you out.”

The kid follows him to the pub at the end of the next street over - The Kings Arms. It’s an unbearably miserable post-war concrete box, with all the cheer and welcome of a kick in the teeth, but it’s open, there’s a free table in a quiet corner, and it looks like John’s not yet been barred from it. Hob buys two pints and a bag of pork scratchings, explains that he needs to break in to Fawney Rig, that the rumours of Burgess’s devil are not entirely false, and that it’s probably going to take a bit of John’s sort of power to break him out. Also that John is free and clear to nick whatever else takes his fancy from the house, including the arcane library, and to burn the place to the ground if he so chooses, so long as the prisoner is freed.

Constantine asks a lot of questions - about who Hob is, how he came to be, why he’s interested, how he found out about the prisoner, why it matters, how he heard about John. He’s not happy about any of the answers, which Hob would be sympathetic about at any other time, but he’s not felt this punchy since the Napoleonic wars. They negotiate John’s fee - two thousand bloody quid, he could buy a flash new car for that - and that Hob will be doing the driving. John had offered a friend of his as driver for an additional fee, but Hob wasn’t keen on being outnumbered on his own job, or the prices on offer.

They agree a strategy and spend a couple of days pulling it together. Hob pulls an appropriately antique notebook and inks from storage and John spends the day filling it with the finest arcane drivel he can come up with. The story they concoct is that it’s a workbook of Lady Johanna’s, discussing her experiments with controlling and compelling entities, that John’s great grandfather removed it from the collection when they sold the estate, and that John is selling it to fund recording Mucus Membrane’s first album and sundry other debts. Hob borrows the identity of Pendragon Oakmoss, a minor arcanist with a penchant for Green Man masks, who’d had a bit of a following in the mid sixties before fucking off to California to have his way with impressionable young women. He’d met Oakmoss a couple of times, and if there are any repercussions from their actions today, Oakmoss is a highly deserving target.

Ideally, they’ll use the first visit to get the lay of the land - how many staff there are, the layout of the building, entry and exit points, any particularly valuable artefacts, and any wards or ways that could cause problems. In a perfect world, they’d charm their way back into a second and third visit in order to sneak Dream out, with Hob as the unsuccessful adept looking for a leader, and John as the naive young ingenue looking for a mentor. This is about as likely as finding Dream had purposely abandoned his domain to become Burgess’ scullery-maid, but hope springs eternal.

Chapter Text

“Sir, two visitors to see you? Regarding a rare book for the library? A Mr Oakmoss, and a Mr Constantine”

Hob has begged, pleaded and finally paid for Constantine to put on some clean clothes. Jeans, army surplus shirt and a brand new leather jacket, as well as a bag with some potentially useful tools, including a crowbar, a big screwdriver, a pistol Hob absolutely didn’t bring back from the war, and some arcane tat he doesn’t care to enquire about. Thankfully, it’s very rare for country estates to require bag checks or a pat-down to enter.

To be fair, it’s not like Hob has made the effort to dress up nice for visiting the Gentry either. To sell the part, he’s adopted a plummy accent and is wearing a shirt he’d bought at the height of the sixties, when pseudo-medieval tunics came into fashion for a moment. He’s also carrying a walking stick made of bog oak and is wearing a half mask covered with oak leaves, on the off chance that Burgess ever met Oakmoss and could recognise his face. He feels like an absolute pillock, but Oakmoss is an absolute pillock, so he supposes it works out.

They are shown into a magnificent library. Some of the decor - particularly the stuffed and mounted animals - needs to find a new home in a bonfire, but the books are a marvel. There’s even some of his early work here, while Constantine’s almost drooling with avarice at the occult books on display.

Alex Burgess is seated in an overlarge and overstuffed wingback chair when they enter, assuming a pose of such studiously affected ease that he looks stiff as a board. Hob gets a sideways glance as he introduces himself and his bona fides, but it’s John, eyeing up the bookshelves with the air of an avaricious collector, who has Burgess’ full attention, the kind of focus you give to a baited wolf.

“Nice place you’ve got here, very fancy. Lots of twiddly carving, must have cost you a packet.” says John, gesturing with his cigarette and getting ash on the parquet floor. He turns, gestures to a glass-topped museum cabinet “Is that the Third Principia? Thought the British Library had the only copy of that left, and they’ve got it in deep storage on Gruniard.”

“No, we are fortunate to have Newton’s original development of the work, from which the copy in the British Library is derived” Burgess’ accent is, as one would expect, that of a man of breeding and education. And also, that of a man who has spent much of his life peeved by his circumstances, such as a peasant and an oik turning up unannounced and wanting his money.

“And this? Babylonian tablets?”

“Sumerian actually, and a cylinder seal too, containing ten of the twelve true names of Nergal, needed to bind a demon such as he. The tablets were a remarkable find, they appear to be a partial retelling of the binding of lords of the underworld. My father was working on a translation of them when he died, and now I fear the work will never be completed. Such a shame.”

Constantine is sharper than he looks, to have picked out and identified two of the greater treasures at first glance. Burgess, torn between pride in his collection, and discomfort in the speed of Constantine’s appraisal of its value, leans back in his chair, perhaps questioning whether he has the true measure of them both.

The butler comes in with a tea tray, lays out a teapot and three cups before departing. Apparently they’ve not rated a plate of biscuits. Rude.

Hob, remembering his manners and waiting to be invited to sit, nearly suggests Burgess donate the Sumerian tablets to a university, but catches himself in time. If The Magus though the tablets were worth investing time into, there’s probably some literally arcane reason not to put them into general circulation. Hob refuses to die until he’s experienced all the world has to offer, but demon summoning rituals can go to the bottom of the list.

Burgess claps his hands as the tea is poured, and finally gestures them both to sit. “But, to business - you had a book of your own you wished to discuss?”

Hob takes a seat and picks up the cup. It’s a weak and insipid brew, but what else should he have expected, really? Constantine doesn’t sit, and instead keeps reviewing the shelves.

Leaning in a touch, voice low, Hob starts to set out their ploy “My young friend - you have surely heard of his family. John Constantine, a direct descendent of Lady Joanna Constantine, who built this house. When his great grandfather was obliged to sell the estate and contents, he took one book, just one book from the collection. This book, Lady Joanna’s personal notebook, on her work to compel and control…entities. Burgess has to lean in to hear Hob, and he can see the light of desire in his eyes, avarice banked.

Hob looks over to where John appears to have found one of the dirty books Hob remembers printing at the height of that particular career, winces and continues “But without the resources of this estate, it’s done the family no good, no good at all, and young John wishes to sever the family connection to the arcane once and for all and throw his lot into music. As such, he is offering to sell the book to you, where it can rejoin the collection. Of course, it’s a very sensitive topic for the young man, to give up on his father’s and grandfather’s legacy, even the work he’s put into it himself, which is why he’s asked me to handle the negotiations.”

Hob reaches slowly into his bag, and pulls out a small tortoiseshell box that they’ve used to package their forgery. He’s fairly sure he used to use it to store cigars, and there’s certainly a whiff of antique tobacco and stale spices from the thing. He places it carefully on the tea table, but makes no move to open the box.

Leaning back in the chair, Hob adds “You’re the first he’s offered the book to, but we know of other practitioners with an interest”

Burgess looks surprised and intrigued by turns, but manages to affect a sympathetic expression on hearing about John’s apparent decision to abandon magic. “It is such a terrible thing, to hear of one with such a storied bloodline abandoning the arcane demi-monde. Bad luck compounds bad luck, and the Lady’s gift for synchronicity must fade in time. How unfortunate for the young man, to be the one left holding the bill.”

Constantine, the little shit, has circled round the room to where he’s behind Burgess and directly in Hob’s eyeline, and is making puking faces at the man’s back “It is indeed, such an terrible shame. But he must be commended for knowing his limitations. Hence, this sale, of the last family heirloom.”

Burgess lifts the lid of the box, places it next to his teacup, and lifts out the notebook. Tooled red leather, faded by age. Good quality paper. Small in size - the kind of thing for a lady to keep track of affairs, rather than for a gentleman to keep track of business. Hob had bought it on a whim for a lady friend, but when she’d broken her wrist in a riding accident, he’d sent her a necklace instead.

Leafing through the pages, Burgess is clearly struck. Hob had intended to give him a few minutes more before interrupting, but Constantine helpfully chose that moment to knock over a stuffed tiger.

“Sorry, sorry!” He calls “wasn’t looking where I was going, I’ll just pick it back up.” Burgess’ face is an irritated frown, drawn tight when Constantine nearly catches the poor thing with his cigarette.

“How do you find it?” Hob asks, to pull Burgess’ attention back to the book.

“It certainly seems authentic at first glance” Burgess replies, sounding peeved and distracted by turns as he heads over to the huge desk in the middle of the room “but it will take me some time to fully appraise its provenance, I fear”

“Of course, I do appreciate that. Lady Joanna’s shorthand is unique and challenging to follow, but I’m sure you have the expertise to get the gist quickly enough.”

Hob pauses, realising Constantine’s clumsiness was intended to give him an opening “Would you mind - I do appreciate this is an imposition - but perhaps your man would be good enough to give us a tour? Young John has not yet learned the wisdom of stillness, and tends to become… testy when asked to wait quietly for extended lengths of time. I’d not wish for his pacing or temper to distract you further from your review.”

Burgess, who has their forgery laid on a book stand, carefully leafing through with one hand while taking notes with the other, barely has the manners to look up before agreeing and calling to the butler “Yes, that seems appropriate - Marc, would you be so good?”

Marc - the butler - provides a tour which is cursory at best. Grand foyer, reception rooms, music room, ballroom, dining room, grand study, games room. Private areas such as the family sitting room are indicated with a wave, and there is no going upstairs to see the bedrooms. No history disclosed, no stories about the house or it’s inhabitants.

What there is, a grand piece of luck, is a shift change behind what Marc had been describing as the door to the wine cellar. The man looked like he’d swallowed a wasp. Hob would never hold himself out as a connoisseur, even at the heights of his wealth and power - he learnt early to eat and drink what was put in front of him before some other bugger could swipe it - but he reckoned that you didn’t need two armed guards for even the fanciest of domestic wine cellars.

Hob puts the inhabitants of the house at Alex Burgess, his ‘business partner’ Paul McGuire, currently off on business, Marc the butler, the groundskeeper, cook and housemaid (not seen but inferred) and six armed security guards staggered over 8-hour shifts. An estate like this used to take easily a hundred staff to run when there was a big family to look after, standards to maintain and a lot of entertaining to provide. He’d needed 20 to run his manor back when he had one, and that was dinky in comparison to this pile.

Usefully, the guards don’t appear to live in. They do their shifts and head home, so there should be a max of four trained guns on site at any one time, if they truly fuck up the timing on their return. Hob doesn’t want to overestimate his chances, but he reckons he can take two guards, a butler and an upper-class weed.

Constantine on the other hand, looks like he’s been chewing on tinfoil. Probably not just a fashionable affect, there’s something in the house that’s really affecting the kid.

“Change of plan - follow my lead” John whispers as they’re escorted back into the library

Oh hell and damnation, what has he decided to do now?

Chapter Text

The plan had been to be personable and interesting and get invited back. They’d know what tools to bring, what level of resistance might be expected. They could have done it cleanly, no loss of life or limb. No evidence that they’d even been involved was the optimistic goal, but clean was the intended minimum.

Constantine, barging into the library and dropping his cigarette butt on the silk rug, is not personable, and is interesting only in the sense that he should be studied to find out if it was nature or nurture that turned him into such an outstandingly awful toe-rag of a man. 

Burgess, for his part, is playing the role they’d previously written for him and with an excited look in his eyes had started to say something positive about his initial review of the book, but Constantine had just barged up to the desk and started talking over the man 

“You know your wards are leaking, right? Fucking terrible it is, just spewing up all over the place. Dunno how you can sleep the night with it shorting out like that.”

Burgess, startled into stillness, has pushed his chair back from the desk, but not yet made any attempt to rise. He manages to sputter out “What on earth do you mean?”

“Don’t give me that - can’t you feel it? Like someone’s using your spine to sharpen a razor blade? Over by your ‘wine cellar’” the kid even does the air quotes. “You sure the wards were set up right in the first place? Sure, you got the containment right, but something’s out of whack. You’re lucky it’s held together this long”

Constantine pauses in his diatribe to light a cigarette. Burgess is a rabbit in the headlights, leaning back in his chair like he’s trying to escape, and doesn’t speak up. 

“Listen - I can probably fix it for you. I know what’s in that book, and what was inscribed on the amulet my old man pawned for beer money. It’ll take you an age to incorporate her work into your practices, and who knows if the thing you’ve got down there will work it’s way out before then. Call it sealing the deal, my last working before giving the whole bag of shite up for good. Double my fee and we can call it mates rates, even”

Hob is, to be fair about it, impressed by John’s tone. He sounds like a mechanic who’s just, spotted something expensively wrong with your car. Which is possibly what pushes the recovering Burgess into a snapped-out response.

“That much! I hardly think so. I’ll offer fifteen thousand, for the book and the work, and not a penny more!”

“Fifteen? You’re having a laugh aren’t you? I could sell that book alone to any of the American mob for double that! Dee would give me fifty without blinking!”

Hob stands quietly by, letting the haggling bounce back and forth. John’s already got Burgess up to twenty-three which is a damn solid payout even if they’ve got the wrong wizard, if they can get it out the door. 

When it gets to twenty-seven and Burgess is going worryingly red, Hob has to step in, all plummy voice and stupid mask “John, let’s not be greedy. While I know you’re leaving the demi-monde, I would suggest that Mr Burgess here would nevertheless be a good friend to have. You’ve more than enough money for your needs, but you can’t buy influence”

Constantine looks sulky (sulkier, perhaps) but does at least shut up, and Burgess sits back in his chair, hackles settling. Hob continues “Gentlemen - let us not waste time nor patience. Give us a few moments to gather our wits, and we can make an initial investigation. Mr Burgess - given the powers and energies this working may produce, may I suggest you give the staff the rest of the day off? We would not want them unduly influenced to interfere, should there be a problem”

Burgess, ruffled feathers settling, gives Hob a level look before summoning the butler. Hob uses the momentary distraction to grab Constantine by the elbow and hiss as low as he possibly can “what the shitting fuck are you up to?”

Constantine takes another drag on his cigarette and looks Hob straight in the eye. “There’s too much power here. That opal you gave me has been going off in my pocket like a fucking vibrator, nearly tore out of my pocket when that cellar door was opened. We can try and come back another day, but let’s be honest, that plan was never going to work. Even you must be able to tell that this house is miserable, and I reckon I can work with that before you get your knickers in a twist and give him a chance to reinforce, yeah?”

Hob’s angry beyond words, but this is out of his hands. Follow my lead infuckingdeed. 

Burgess leads them through the house and down the hidden stairs. Hob lets Burgess and Constantine take the lead, as he truly has no idea what to expect, and is feeling thinner and thinner with each step. This was his first guess, and if he is right first time, well - he’s seen dungeons and prisons in his time, seen people broken on the rack, been persecuted for witchcraft himself, but this arcane malarkey has him so far out of his depth the fish all have headlights. 

What he sees is an abomination. It’s a clean abomination, true, there’s no blood on the ground or in the air, no screams of the tormented and damned. An abomination all the same. 

There’s a well-constructed cellar, and behind it, a heavy iron gate guarded by two guards, who had been sat at a desk reading the newspaper, but had jumped to attention at the sound of the door opening. A pillared hall of stone, painted with the sky and stars like a copy of an Egyptian tomb. A shallow channel filled with clean water surrounding a central space. And in that central space, a glass and iron bauble that reminds him of some amalgamation of a diving bell and space capsule, hanging from chains above a circle inscribed golden runes. And his oldest, strangest friend, imprisoned within. Stripped naked, with barely enough room to stand, not enough to fully lie down.

Dream barely looks up at their entry. No more movement than that. No indication of whether or not he’s recognised Hob, if this visit is unusual, or if he’s been displayed like a circus freak show exhibit so frequently it doesn’t bear reacting to. 

Thank the lords and ladies that Hob’s last into the room, and for this godawful mask, because it means Burgess as his guards can’t read his expression easily. 

And thank fuck for Constantine. He’s bounced into the room like it’s a toy shop, like it’s nothing but an interesting puzzle for him to solve. Like he’s seen beings of fathomless age captured in an oversized Christmas tree decoration before, and doesn’t have nightmares about slave ships or Boer camps, or the things Hob saw during the war.  

“Here, is that out of the Magdalene Grimoire? Fuck me sideways, I mean I’ve seen it once, briefly, and there’s notes, glosses you know, but to see it actually inscribed, well it’s a sight indeed. Because right, because it looks to me like you’ve not considered the Peterhouse addenda, right?” 

The kid had hopped over the water-filled channel and was walking around the cage, completely ignoring the occupant and knocking his cigarette ash off against the metal frame, gesturing at some mark on the far side of the cell from Hob and the guards “Come here mate, come here - you see this sigil here right? How is it not staring you in the face? Can’t you feel the flow of energy? You’ve got the colophormin misaligned so it follows the paving slab, not the true line of power. Like, what do you think you’re powering this circle with anyway?”

Burgess, apparently struggling to keep up with the cavalcade of bullshit flowing from Constantine’s mouth, answers uncertainly “It’s a self-powering circle, that is the design of the ritual. The initial charge was provided by my father’s lifeblood, but once the creature was captured, it worked to  syphon off a touch of it’s life essence to power the binding.”

Constantine winces theatrically at that, sucks at his teeth and shakes his head “yeah, and I’ve got a perpetual motion machine, use it to power the tv. I’m betting you didn’t even renew the wards when your old man popped it, just expected things to continue as they were without a transfer of control? The way you’ve got this set up, that error on this sigil, well it’s not drawing from his life force - which, not a good idea either - it’s drawing from the life force of the house. I mean, I bet things were all right after a big party right? Your old man better to be around, this chump more contained? But when it had been a while, when his bit of skirt ran off and the visitors stopped coming, well, I guess things got all tense? That was this fucker, trying to escape! Pulling on the only thread he had, like an electric current seeking earth. Give it much longer, and the things that come to eat your eyeballs will be an absolute lark compared to some of the nightmares he’ll start pulling in. Mind you, I guess you’re lucky he’s not the more proactive type - a demon would have made a deal by now and you’d have a very different problem.”

At which point, Constantine slammed Burgess’ head hard against the iron bars. The man is knocked unconscious immediately, a smear of blood on the glass as John pushes him to topple backwards, away from the binding circle. 

Hob is so startled he almost doesn’t react in time. Thankfully, the guards weren’t expecting anything either. They’re also slow off the mark in reaching for their pistols. Hob gets there first with a hard crack of his walking stick across the neck and head, and the man goes down in an instant with a bloody, wet noise. 

He drops the cane, wanting to be up close and personal for a fight with guns in the mix, punches the second guard as hard as he can manage. The man doesn’t go down in one blow like his friend, but Hob has been a fighter for more centuries than this man has decades, and fighting fair is for chumps who want to die. The man is focused on trying to use his gun, to get enough space between them so he can bring it up. Hob allows him none, steps in close and drives one fist hard into the man’s nose, sending shards of bone back and up, followed by a sharp knee to the groin. The man collapses to the floor in an airless heap, and Hob takes the opportunity to slam his heel into the man’s fingers, breaking the hand and sending the gun skittering off a few feet. 

He knows he’s likely killed both men. He’s done worse things to better men for far more trivial reasons, but he hadn’t come here today expecting to kill. He thinks, fleetingly, that should feel worse about it than he does. 

Instead, he looks at his Stranger, Dream of the Endless, and removes the mask. Morpheus has frozen, hope and fear in the darkness, starlight eyes fixed on Hob in worry.

“Don’t disturb the circle!” John calls out sharply, as Hob steps up to touch the glass

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, don’t disturb the fucking circle, you muppet. Don’t touch it, don’t reach into it, don’t step over it. Look at the fucking amulet!”

The opal amulet in John’s hand is straining on its cord to point directly through the bubble and at Hob. Not Dream in the centre of the cage. Hob, off to one side. 

“You fucking did!”

“I’m fucking special, innit? Give me five fucking minutes to make sure you don’t get your soul bitten off”

It’s an effort of terrible will to pull his hand back from the glass, from Dream. Hob, feeling stretched out and thin, realises too slowly that this may be the ‘being et’ his mysterious correspondent mentioned. They couldn’t come here for fear of being trapped too - is that what’s happening to him? Some strange side effect of his long life?

He stares at Dream, so close but still out of reach, completely at a loss.

“I’m guessing this is the one you were expecting, so he’s probably not going to try and curse us when we let him out, right?” Constantine smashes the moment like a glass bottle.

Hob’s operating on something close to automatic, barely willing to spare the fraction of his attention needed to answer, but manages “yeah, this is the man I’m looking for. What do you need to do to free him?”

John’s grin could politely be described as shit-eating “Firstly, I reckon I need a boon promised, for freeing Morpheus from the cage of dreams. Only fair, right?” 

The expression on Dream’s face turns instantly poisonous, and is echoed by Hob, who nails the kid with the dirtiest look he can summon. He growls out, disappointed and angry and tired with other men’s blood under his nails “Yeah kid, you get a boon of me keeping to our original deal and not boxing your fucking ears until your brain runs out your nose. Good enough?”

The grin remains as Constantine responds “Fine fine, no need to be so testy about it! And breaking the circle should be fine. We could literally just scrape a line through it, but I’d rather disarm this bomb the safe way, if that’s alright with you fine gentlemen?” The kid, drawing out the word fine into an insolent drawl, essays an approximation of a bow from his seated position, then gets to work. 

Hob, careful not to breach the circle, reaches out. It’s echoed by Dream, crouched among the spikes and rivets that line his cage. “I got the strangest letter. Said you didn’t need any help. I’ll have you about as soon as I can, God’s blood and bones, I swear.”

He grabs the bag and leaves Constantine doing something complicated and weird to the runic circle. The kid says something about having started to discharge the pointing quantum nodes, but thankfully makes no attempt to explain further, leaving Hob to consider this cage of glass and iron. 

His first impressions weren’t far wrong. Thick glass, bolted cold iron, heavy-duty gaskets to make the whole thing airtight, it’s a space capsule as designed by Jules Verne’s evil twin. How had they gotten Dream into the thing? No hinges, had it been constructed around him? The ironwork is heavy, and while he could probably find a suitably sized wrench to disassemble it via the bolts, it’d take more time than he’s inclined to spend. Glass? Glass is easier to break. 

“Right, you should be able to reach into the circle, but I’m still working on the rest of it”

A quirk of fate that Hob’s long had cause to appreciate is that he still has much the same body he did when he first met Dream. When he was fighting fit, an English Longbowman in the various skirmishes, rebellions and stupid slap-fights that made up the 100-Years-War, when his bow had a 110-pound draw and he could consistently put 6 arrows in the air a minute for as long as he had arrows to fire. Skills atrophy, but the body remains. 

Fuck off with your glass bauble, Hob Gadling has a crowbar. 

He doesn’t want to shatter the glass outright - alright, he does, but shattering the glass would be suboptimal for their health if it went flying everywhere. Dream has no clothes or protection, and it’s a poor rescue that injures the rescuee. 

He uses the crowbar to score a rough line in the glass around and across a pane, to hopefully give a weak point for it to break along away from the thickest part of the dome. It’s unlikely, he knows - this is thick glass - but worth trying before he breaks out the gun and shoots toward Dream.  

“Alright, breaking the circle… now!” calls out Constantine. The candles, the electric lights, the very air itself, flickers with a breath released. 

Hob swings his crowbar. The glass fractures, force channeled through the scored lines. A second blow expands the damage and a third has cracks racing toward each other. Rather than taking a fourth swing, he uses the point of the crowbar at the nexus of the worst cracks to punch a hole through, then reverses it to break away larger pieces. 

Dream’s reaction is instant, immediate. As soon as there’s room, he thrusts his hand out, pushing glass shards away and reaching for Hob. Hob squeezes his hand, trying to put all the reassurance he can muster into what must be the first non-hostile touch Dream had experienced in over half a century. It breaks Hob’s heart to let go, but he needs both hands to open a large enough hole for Dream to climb through, moving like half a spider. Hob pulls him through, tries to support Dream’s near-insubstantial weight so that the man doesn’t have to stand on broken glass. 

Hob carries Dream out of the circle, over the channel, water tainted with blood leaking from Burgess’ broken skull. Kneels to place Dream carefully down on the flagstones, hold him close, foreheads pressed together. Dream, deep breaths shuddering like wracking sobs in his empty frame, clutches at him like a drowning man plucked at last minute from the sea, like he’s afraid that if he lets go the world will fall away. 

Constantine drops his new jacket at Hob’s side before moving away, giving them a moment. Kid has a lick of sense after all. Hob drapes the jacket over Dream’s shoulders, where it lengthens from a bomber jacket to a full length trench coat. Dream’s pulling himself together, breath steadying as he packs away that moment of terrible vulnerability behind his accustomed armour and royal demeanour. 

Dream’s hand goes into the pocket of the coat, draws out a small leather pouch. Relief washes over him, a wave that Hob, even at arms-length, feels in his marrow. For Dream, this pouch is something more fundamental to the operation of his being than mere physics. 

“Constantine. You’ll have your boon. Where did you come by this?”

Hob’s so used to Dream’s voice as steady. Deep and slow and knowing. Now, he sounds raw, like he’s spent decades screaming. He’s gathering strength, that’s self-evident, but this imprisonment is a deep wound. 

“Bought it. From a car boot sale in Prestatyn, ‘bout a year ago. Thought it was one of those kangaroo scrotum bags, but I couldn’t even get the strings open”

“That is… unhelpful”

“Yeah, well, not my fault. Hey, you got my lighter in there too?”

Dream exhales, looks over to the iron gate into the room. Stands up sharply with brutal self-control, all remaining vulnerability locked away. A taste on the air that Hob associates with air-raid sirens.  

Two women stand in the doorway looking like chalk and cheese. The first is a black woman dressed all in black with a silver ankh on a necklace, her hair in a puffball afro like some sort of monochrome disco queen, while the other, much younger and far more fragile in appearance, is similarly pale to Dream and looks like she could be one of John’s crowd. Her head is half shaved, remaining hair dyed in half a hundred colours where it spills out from under a pink fur hat. She’s wearing a binbag painted with stars, a tartan miniskirt and polka dot army boots. It’s… a lot. 

“Mister Sir Gadling, you didn’t get et!” The colourful girl rushes forward and envelops the still-kneeling Hob in a bigger hug than she should feasibly be able to manage, and the only thing he can do is return it. “I was very worried that you would get et, because I oughtn’t to have written at you at all, because this is not how it’s really meant to go”

“Thank you, your letter was very helpful” her fur hat smells of sweetshops and sour hospitals, and he feels dizzier than when he first read her letter, first came into this room and saw Dream in his cage. “It meant I knew to be careful about being eaten.”

“Delirium.” Dream’s voice is heavy and stern, and the young girl pulls away from the hug to stand at parade rest next to Dream. Hob can see that the other woman is kneeling by Burgess, apparently talking quietly to him. His body, at least. 

She crosses over to the bodies of the guards, and something that Hob can’t see takes each of her hands. There’s not a sound, but the memory of a sensation of a sound, of an immense pair of wings beating, and something is gone from the world.

From there, she crosses over to Dream and Delirium. Hob’s sure he’s not firing on all cylinders, shock, surprise and adrenaline crashes all conspiring against him, but if his Stranger is Dream, and the colourful girl is the Lady Delirium, then this is presumably the Death mentioned in her letter.

The part of his soul that dates from before his first meeting with Dream expects Death to look like an unburied corpse, the grim reaper uncloaked, vomit-stained with buboes exposed. Not a friendly face with a warm heart.

Death grips Dream by the shoulders and stares fixedly into his eyes. Hob’s older sister had died when he was 12, but he does remember sibling dynamics. Dream is either going to get hugged or punched. 

Hug it is, from both sisters. Dream looks so uncomfortable - not the hopeless look of the man on his knees in the glass cage, but the look of a man whose siblings are being really, truly, gleefully, embarrassing. There’s a tiger-striped splodge of blue-orange glitter on his coat. 

After a moment, Death steps back. “Destiny is utterly furious. This is not what is Written”

“Not how things are written, but it is what’s meant to be” Delirium pipes up “what is and what ought and what could be, it all gets twisty like spaghetti”. She pauses, finger on her lips “wait, that’s not a good rhyme. Twisty like three cups of tea? No, that doesn’t work either.”

“She went against Destiny?”

“For you, yes.” 

“But…”

“Indeed, little brother.” 

“She shouldn’t have involved Hob. He is, they are, not our playthings” 

“We couldn’t act directly. Until the binding circle was erased, any of us would have been pulled in too. Your dreamfolk were weakened and wild. All she did was tell him you were in trouble. He decided to do the rest, because he is your friend, you nincompoop psychopomp” the last few words were delivered with increasingly forceful prods to the chest, entirely ignoring the building fury in Dream’s voice. 

“What she said” Hob piped up from the floor “It was my choice to help my friend” And he wasn’t terribly keen on having his choices dismissed, though that seems an unwise addition just now. 

Dream has been bristling like an angry cat since the two women entered the room, but there’s a sudden flare of purple-edged darkness in the room as though Hob had pressed on his eyeballs, as though the man had reached past the end of his tenuous hold on his rope and was preparing to storm out. Hob starts to stand, ready to chase the infuriating man down again, but Delirium gets there first, standing on Dream’s bare foot with her heavy boot. The darkness and the siren-taste feeling instantly dissipate.

“Delirium.”

“What do we say?”

“Delirium. Please.”

“That’s perfectly all right Dream. You just have to take a moment to think first, second and third thoughts. You’ll get better with practice I expect” She hugs Dream again quickly, then dashes off to where Constantine is lurking, entirely unprepared for her approach.  “Hello Mr Constantine. You’re younger than I expected, and not as smartly dressed.”

In all senses but the physical, Dream looks like the aftermath of a lightning strike. Death reaches out a hand to help Hob up off the floor before giving Dream a reassuring pat on the shoulder. “There’s not much Destiny can do at this point. Time rolls ever on, after all, but he’s going to be terrible until he’s finished whatever it is he does.”

The assessing look on Death’s face is soft and caring. “Dream, I’ve got to get back to work, there’s a plane crashing that I need to get to, but - don’t be a stranger, okay?”

Dream looks over to Delirium and Constantine, where the youngest Endless is juggling with the glass shards of his prison “If Destiny is on the warpath, perhaps she should take refuge in the Dreaming for a while. Until things have calmed down, perhaps.”

“Chance would be a fine thing!” She laughs, hugging Dream and Hob in turn, before heading back up the stairs, vanishing as she turns a corner.