Hellblazer: Lost Innocence

Chapter 2

One thing that struck John as odd was that lack of a corporate establishment in this small burg. There was no chain store, no well known department store, and instead it was as if this town had simply been left behind in a simpler time. The restaurants were all local places, the department stores were more of the same. True, it wasn’t as if he had a great love for the corporate entities that often choked out smaller businesses, but not seeing them was odd in and of itself.

All of his time spent here in the good old USofA had taught him that even a tiny hamlet of about a thousand people still managed to get a discount department store that was part of the larger corporate world. Cayuga Springs wasn’t huge, but it was certainly bigger than a few places he had been to before. In all truth it should have at least managed to garner at least a McDonald’s.

“This strike you as weird?” Chas asked.

John nodded, “Yeah mate, this is bloody weird in a way that doesn’t feel at all right. It’s almost like this place was stuck back in the fifties, kept the idea of small business, and stayed there.”

The entire day had been spent getting the materials they needed for John to perform a scrying spell. Normally, a scrying spell would simply let you know where someone was, but in this case he was going to figure out who someone was. The spell would need to be tweaked a bit, and that meant getting materials. They had to have pure sea salt, blood, tongue, cherry flavored pipe tobacco, and finally a twenty ounce bottle of Crystal Pepsi.

Getting the materials was interesting. They were able to get the blood and tongue from a butcher’s shop. Both had come from a hog, the sea salt came from a grocer, the pipe tobacco actually had ended up being at a small gas station, but it had taken them looking all over the town before finding a small convenience store that had a stock of Crystal Pepsi. John made a casting circle with the sea salt, then he drew the runes inside of it with the blood. He took the tongue, sliced off a small piece, and tied it to a doll that looked similar to the front desk woman.

A hair he had grabbed from her shirt, while appearing to help, had been sewn into the doll itself. He placed it in the center, and then he looked at the circle. The swell of magic flowed over it, covering it, and it leaked out like a constant drip from an old faucet. He studied it, and then sat cross legged in front of it.

“Antiquis audire mandatum istud. Veritatem imaginis,” he said.

The circle glowed a dull green, and then it turned red. A moment later flames licked up from the center of it, and he watched as the doll was covered in green flames. It transformed from the voodoo doll he had made into a hard plastic toy. It looked vaguely equine, in form, a long jagged horn stood on its head, and its legs were filled with holes. There was a sort of malice in its eyes that he couldn’t explain, and then the flames died down. When it was gone everything, including the bottle of Crystal Pepsi he had placed in the circle, had been removed.

It didn’t give him much, but it did confirm something for him. The woman manning the front of the store wasn’t human. What she was, he had no clue, but she obviously wasn’t human. He tried to figure out what it was, but it was Chas that said something.

“Was that a Changeling?”

John looked at him, “Didn’t look like one of the fey that I’ve ever seen,” he said, as he looked back at the circle.

Chas shook his head, “No, it looked like a changeling from My Little Pony,” he saw John look at him. He shook his head, “I’ve watched an episode or two with Geraldine before, and one of them had those things in them. That actually looked like their leader, Queen Chrystal or something.”

John nodded, “Okay, so we’re dealing with something that believes itself to be this changeling. That does help limit some of the options, but why did it look like a human then?”

Chas closed his eyes for a moment, as if he was trying to look inside of his mind, and then he opened them and looked at John.

“In the show they could take the form of anyone. And they could do it so well that no one would ever know the difference.”

Hearing that John looked at the ceiling, “Bloody hell. Alright, so we’ve got a cartoon shapeshifter that can practically take any form. I don’t suppose she had any real weaknesses did she?”

Chas looked at him and shrugged, “I remember that the pony she took the place of found her husband to be, they kissed, and somehow her love for her husband was enough to drive them away.”

John considered that for a moment. Sure, it was cliché, but there was a reason it was. Clichés tended to be the things that were true and stuck to the walls. There was a reason why humanity loved to follow sayings that were as old as time itself. True love beating a big bad was one of those things. When love is present, honest, real, and fantastic true love that it is, then its very nature and power are more than enough to often drive off, if not destroy, a presence of evil. It’s why the Almighty’s protection on those faithful to him is so absolute. If the doctrine is to be believed then he is made of love, and that means those things which love hurts can’t abide in his presence.

But it didn’t really help in this instance. Sure, he loved Chas, but not in the biblical sense that he was sure the kid’s show, and this big bad would require him to. So that left finding other weaknesses. He wasn’t found on the idea of looking up information about a cartoon character, but then again it wouldn’t be the first time that he had to deal with darker forces that took the form of a beloved character in order to either fool, or serve, a child.

But even if that was the case here the doll wouldn’t have shown that Changeling. It would have shown the dark force itself. It would have revealed whichever demon, spirit, or displaced warlock that had taken the form of the Changeling. So, since this thing believed itself to be what they just saw that left really only two options. The first was one of several homunculi that had been formed by belief in a character.

Unfortunately creating a homunculus was more than just belief. It took massive belief, thousands, if not millions of people believing in the same character, and then it took a very skilled sorcerer or alchemist to bring that belief together and form a body from the necessary materials while forcing those materials into a single being. It was possible that there was another magic user here, but if that was the case why wasn’t he already being attacked. Sorcerers and Alchemists that had the ability to create Homuculi didn’t skulk around and hide in the shadows when there was another practitioner of the arts in the area. They tended to clean house, and they tended to do it quickly.

So that left the other option. A loa. A lesser deity that was usually worshiped in some Voodoo and Hoodoo circles. If one had just hung around the area it would latch onto something that someone believed in hard enough. It would take shape, and then it would begin to act out like the being it took the form of. It would only grow in power as it served the one that believed in it, and it would do all it could to ensure that there was never a reason for doubt.

He took a seat, his mind focused and sure at this point. There was no doubt in his mind. That was what they were facing. It had to be a Loa. For it to have this kind of power over this town then the Loa had to already become massively powerful. John smiled, the saving grace was that the Loa would be at the mercy of only having the powers that its form had. So, this thing obviously believed it was a Changeling. Then it would only have its powers. Chas had filled him in on the shapeshifting. That left the other abilities it had.

Unfortunately that did mean research.

“So, that book you’re reading, does it have Changelings in it?”

Chas shook his head, “They’re not even mentioned.”

He nodded, “Alright. Then we’ve got to do some work. We need to find out all we can about Changelings, and we’ve got to do it quick.”

Chas smiled, “So, we’re going to be watching the show?”

John grinned, “Maybe, or maybe we can just try to assess the internet and see what they say about her.”

Chas nodded, “That makes sense, so, what do think it is?”

John looked at the door, noticed that the protection charm on it had darkened a bit. That meant that something had already tried to get inside of it once.”

“It’s a Loa, some petty little Voodoo deity that’s latched onto someone poor sod’s belief in this character. It’s taken her form, and I would bet that it’s feeding off of that belief. Since it’s taken over the town I’ve got to think that this has been happening for a while.”

Chas nodded, “Makes sense, so we browse the internet, find some information on her, and then what do we do?”

John looked at him, “Then we give this changeling a one way ticket straight out of here.”