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The artifact sat on Constantine's desk like a malignant tumor a small brass clock face with hands that moved backwards, encased in a framework of blackened bone. It had arrived that morning via courier, wrapped in newspaper from 1987 and accompanied by a note written in Constantine's own handwriting: Stop the Harlem ritual. October 8th, 1994. You'll know when. -JC
"This is either the most elaborate con I've ever seen," Constantine muttered, examining the object with magical sight, "or I'm about to have a very bad day."
The clock face pulsed with temporal energy unmistakable, dangerous, and according to every textbook Constantine had ever read, completely impossible to create without access to technology or magic far beyond his capabilities. Which meant either future-him had gotten significantly more powerful, or he'd stolen something he shouldn't have.
Both options were entirely plausible.
His mobile rang. Strange, naturally.
"Tell me you're not planning to use that chronometric anchor without supervision," Strange said without preamble.
Constantine looked around his office. No surveillance equipment visible, but that meant nothing with mystical monitoring. "How did you "
"I felt it arrive. Temporal distortions create ripples in the astral plane." Strange's tone was grim. "John, time travel is extraordinarily dangerous. The tiniest change can cascade into catastrophic alterations of the timeline. Whatever your future self wants you to prevent, the cost of prevention might be worse than the original disaster."
"Noted. But if I sent this to myself, that means I succeeded, yeah? Otherwise, timeline gets erased, no one sends the anchor, paradox resolved."
"That's not how temporal mechanics work. Multiple timelines can branch from a single intervention, creating parallel realities where " Strange paused. "You're going regardless of what I say, aren't you?"
"The note mentions Harlem. A ritual. 1994." Constantine lit a Silk Cut, studying the backwards-moving clock hands. "I've been researching Mephisto's operations. Found references to a major summoning attempt in Harlem that year something that supposedly failed but the details are suspiciously vague. What if it didn't fail? What if it succeeded and I'm being sent back to make sure it fails?"
Strange was silent for a long moment. "If Mephisto successfully completed a major summoning in 1994, the effects would be catastrophic. We'd be living in a very different world."
"Exactly. Which means whatever I'm about to do, it's necessary." Constantine picked up the chronometric anchor. It was warm, almost alive. "How do I use this thing?"
"You focus on the target date and location while holding it. The anchor will pull you backwards through the timestream to that specific moment." Strange's voice carried warning. "But John, you'll have limited time. Maybe an hour, perhaps less. The timeline has inertia it wants to maintain its current configuration. You'll feel increasing pressure to return to the present the longer you remain in the past. Push too hard against that pressure and you could become temporally unstuck, existing in multiple time periods simultaneously."
"That sounds unpleasant."
"It's fatal. Your consciousness would fragment across decades, unable to maintain coherent existence in any single moment." Strange paused. "I'm coming with you."
"No." Constantine's response was immediate. "If something goes wrong, this timeline needs you here. And besides, the note came to me. Whatever happens, it's my responsibility."
"John "
"I've got this, doc. Trust me."
Constantine hung up before Strange could argue further. He took a long drag on his cigarette, then stubbed it out. October 8th, 1994. Harlem. He focused on those parameters, pulling up mental images of Harlem in the mid-90s the neighborhood before gentrification, when crack cocaine and gang violence defined the streets, when communities struggled just to survive.
The chronometric anchor grew hot in his palm. The world began to shimmer, colors bleeding together like wet paint. Constantine felt a pulling sensation, as if someone had hooked his sternum and was reeling him backwards through existence.
The office disappeared.
Time travel, Constantine discovered, felt like being flushed down a cosmic toilet while someone played his entire life in reverse at triple speed. He saw flashes the council meeting, Sarah Chen's terrified face, Astra in Limbo, his arrival in this reality, years in his own universe, Newcastle, back and back and back
He hit something solid.
Constantine stumbled, catching himself against a brick wall. The world stabilized. He was in an alley, nighttime, the air thick with autumn chill and the smell of garbage. Music thumped from somewhere nearby that distinctive early-90s hip-hop sound. Car alarms wailed in the distance.
He checked his watch: October 8th, 1994, 9:47 PM.
"Bloody hell," Constantine breathed. "It actually worked."
The chronometric anchor had disappeared from his hand, which the note had warned about. It would reappear when his time was nearly up, giving him warning to return. Until then, he was stuck in 1994 with whatever problems his future self had deemed important enough to risk temporal paradox.
Constantine emerged from the alley onto a Harlem street that looked simultaneously familiar and alien. The buildings were the same, but shabbier, covered in graffiti that hadn't been gentrified away yet. People on the corners eyed him suspiciously a white guy in a trench coat didn't belong here, especially at night.
He felt it immediately: the wrongness permeating the neighborhood. Magical sight revealed a sickly red aura centered somewhere to the north, pulsing with demonic energy. The ritual was already underway.
Constantine started walking, following the mystical beacon. He'd gone two blocks when someone stepped out of a doorway in front of him a kid, maybe seventeen, wearing a hoodie and holding a knife with the nervous energy of someone working up courage.
"Wallet," the kid said, voice cracking. "Phone. Now."
Constantine sighed. "I really don't have time for this, mate."
"I ain't your mate. Give me "
A figure dropped from the fire escape above, landing between them with impossible grace. The newcomer was a teenager, Black, wearing makeshift armor cobbled together from sports equipment and what looked like climbing gear. But it was the web-shooters on his wrists that made Constantine's eyes widen.
Spider-Man. A very young Spider-Man.
"Hey, maybe let's not stab the tourist?" The teenage hero's voice hadn't fully dropped yet. "I mean, mugging's bad enough, but with a knife? That's like, aggravated assault. Way worse sentence if you get caught."
The mugger stared. "Who the hell "
"Your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man! Well, friendly neighborhood Spider-Kid, technically, but that doesn't have the same ring." The teen fired webbing, yanking the knife from the mugger's hand. "Now why don't you run along before I have to web you to a lamppost? I've got a curfew, you've got a conscience theoretically let's both call it a night."
The mugger ran.
Spider-Man turned to Constantine. "You okay, mister? Harlem's kind of rough after dark. Might want to stick to better-lit streets."
Constantine studied the kid. Peter Parker, had to be, though years before he'd become the hero Constantine had occasionally worked with in the present. This Peter was rougher around the edges, his movements less fluid, his confidence more bravado than genuine certainty.
"Appreciate the save," Constantine said carefully. Time travel rules: don't reveal future knowledge, don't create unnecessary complications. "But I'm actually here on business. Supernatural business."
Peter's eyes widened behind his mask. "Supernatural? Like... ghosts and stuff?"
"And demons. Speaking of which " Constantine pointed north, where the red aura was intensifying. "There's a major demonic ritual happening about six blocks that way. I need to stop it. You should probably stay clear."
"A demon ritual." Peter's voice cracked with excitement and terror. "That's... that's real? Like, actually real?"
"Very real. Very dangerous. Which is why "
"I'm coming with you." Peter's stance shifted into something combat-ready. "I'm a superhero. Helping people is literally my thing."
"You're a kid who shoots webs and punches muggers. This is several weight classes above your experience level."
"So was the guy with mechanical tentacles I fought last month, but I still won." Peter's voice carried surprising steel. "Look, I don't know who you are or why you know about demon rituals, but if something bad is happening in my neighborhood, I'm not sitting it out. That's not what heroes do."
Constantine wanted to argue, but time was ticking and the ritual was building toward critical mass. He could feel it from here souls being wrenched from their bodies, demonic energy flooding into the material plane, reality beginning to strain under the weight of something vast trying to push through.
"Fine," Constantine said. "But you follow my lead, do exactly what I say, and if I tell you to run, you run. Understood?"
"Understood!" Peter practically bounced with nervous energy. "So what are we stopping? What kind of demon?"
"The big kind." Constantine started walking, Peter following. "Someone's trying to summon one of Hell's major players directly into our reality. If they succeed, thousands die tonight and the entire Eastern Seaboard becomes a demon-infested hellscape."
"Oh." Peter's voice was small. "That's... bad."
"Exceptionally."
They moved through Harlem's streets, Constantine following the mystical beacon while Peter provided running commentary about every shadow, sound, and suspicious movement. The kid was observant but inexperienced, treating this like an adventure rather than a potential apocalypse.
They reached the source: an abandoned church, its windows boarded up, its doors chained. But light blazed from inside not natural light, but the sickly red glow of hellfire. Screams echoed from within, human voices raised in either prayer or agony.
"Okay," Peter whispered. "How do we "
The church doors exploded outward.
Three figures emerged, wreathed in flames. Not demons yet, but humans in the process of transformation bodies twisting, skin sloughing off to reveal something reptilian and wrong underneath. Behind them, Constantine could see the ritual space: a massive pentagram drawn in blood, candles burning with black fire, and at the center, a swirling vortex of demonic energy.
"Intruders," one of the transforming cultists hissed. Its face was no longer quite human, jaw extending into something that could open far too wide. "Kill them."
Peter didn't wait for Constantine's signal. The teen launched himself forward, webbing hitting the nearest cultist and yanking it off-balance. The creature stumbled, giving Peter time to land a kick that would have pulverized a normal person's ribs.
The cultist barely flinched.
"They're tougher than they look!" Peter called, dodging a swipe of claws that would have disemboweled him.
"They're partially possessed!" Constantine was already moving, hands sketching protective wards in the air while he chanted in Latin. "Aim for the head disrupts the possession!"
Peter adjusted, web-slinging around his opponent and landing a powerful uppercut to its jaw. The cultist's head snapped back, and for a moment the demonic possession flickered. Peter webbed its hands to the ground before it could recover.
Constantine dealt with the other two simultaneously, throwing holy water from a vial he always carried. Where the blessed liquid touched, the cultists' transformed flesh burned and smoked. They screamed horrible, inhuman sounds and retreated into the church.
"Inside!" Constantine ran for the entrance. "We need to disrupt the ritual before "
The vortex in the center of the church pulsed, expanding. Something vast and terrible was pushing through from the other side, trying to manifest. Constantine could see its outline multiple heads, wings that spanned the entire church, claws that could rend reality itself.
"What is that?!" Peter's voice was pure terror.
"Baalzebul. One of Hell's demon princes." Constantine assessed the situation rapidly. The ritual was too far advanced to stop conventionally. He'd need to do something drastic, something that would burn through his magical reserves and probably knock him out.
Something Future Constantine apparently knew he'd succeed at, otherwise he wouldn't have sent himself back.
"Spider-Man!" Constantine grabbed the kid's shoulder. "I need you to trust me. I'm going to disrupt that portal, but the backlash is going to be massive. Use your webbing to create a barrier between us and the civilians outside anyone caught in the blast zone is going to have a very bad time."
"What are you going to do?"
"Something stupid and brilliant in equal measure." Constantine pulled out chalk, quickly sketching a counter-sigil on the church floor. "Go! Now!"
Peter hesitated for only a moment, then swung away, webbing the church's broken windows and creating barriers. Constantine could hear him shouting at people to get back, evacuate the area.
Good kid. He'd make a hell of a hero someday.
Constantine finished the counter-sigil and stepped into its center. The ritual to close a summoning portal from this side required channeling massive amounts of energy in the opposite direction essentially creating a spiritual explosion that would slam the door shut on Baalzebul's manifestation.
The cost would be high. Potentially fatal if he miscalculated.
But what was life without a little risk?
Constantine began the banishment ritual, pulling power from every source he could reach ley lines beneath the city, his own life force, even the latent mystical energy in the church itself. His voice rose, words of power that predated human language, syllables that made reality shiver.
The vortex noticed him. Baalzebul noticed him.
One of the demon prince's heads turned toward Constantine, its eyes burning with recognition and fury. "YOU," it said, voice like continents grinding together. "THE CONSTANTINE. YOU DARE INTERFERE WITH MY MANIFESTATION?"
"I dare all sorts of things," Constantine gritted out, maintaining the ritual. "But mostly, I dare tell you to piss off back to Hell."
He released the built-up energy in one massive pulse.
The counter-sigil blazed with golden light. The energy slammed into the vortex like a battering ram, disrupting the careful mystical architecture that had taken the cultists weeks to build. The portal screamed actually screamed as it collapsed inward.
Baalzebul roared in fury as he was dragged backwards, his partial manifestation unraveling. "THIS CHANGES NOTHING, CONSTANTINE! I WILL REMEMBER! IN EVERY TIMELINE, EVERY REALITY, I WILL HUNT YOU!"
"Get in line," Constantine muttered.
The portal collapsed completely with a sound like reality breaking. The backlash hit Constantine like a truck, lifting him off his feet and slamming him into the church wall. He felt ribs crack, tasted blood, and then everything went fuzzy around the edges.
Spider-Man was suddenly there, catching him before he hit the ground again. "Whoa, hey, stay with me! That was amazing! Scary and possibly illegal, but amazing! How did you "
"Peter." Constantine's voice was weak. The chronometric anchor was materializing in his hand, which meant his time was nearly up. "Peter Parker."
"How do you know my " Peter's eyes widened behind his mask.
"Listen carefully." Constantine grabbed the kid's arm. "You're going to be one of the greatest heroes this world ever sees. You're going to save millions of lives, inspire countless others, stand against gods and monsters and win. But it starts here. With you being brave enough to follow a stranger into Hell to save people you don't even know."
"I... what?"
"Don't ever lose that." Constantine felt the pull of the timestream, calling him back to 2025. "The courage, the heart, the absolute bloody-minded refusal to give up even when everything's hopeless. That's what makes you Spider-Man."
The chronometric anchor activated. The world began to shimmer.
"Wait!" Peter called. "Who are you? Will I see you again?"
"John Constantine," Constantine managed. "And yeah, kid. You'll see me again. Thirty-one years from now. Try not to die before then."
The timestream grabbed him and pulled.
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