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Chapter 79: Staff Of All Things VI
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"I have pretty much solved the case." And Ian didn't quite understand how, but he can at least assume it has something to do with magic and some knowledge he doesn't have.
"I just have to check a few things to make sure." He then called the landlord while Ian observe the other ghost. What appears to be a female ghost who in contrast to the one in his hand seems to want to escape the room.
No, scratch that. She wanted to stay as far away as possible from the male ghost in Ian's hand. Se seemed afraid while the male ghost seemed obsessive, "I see." A clear picture of what happened started to surface in Ian's mind.
"This is something demons do a lot. They seek devils in human skin, the evilest of humans, and they make them remain on the planes of the living in the form of spirits, malevolent spirits."
Constantine seemed to take the role of a teacher seriously for the first time in like ever. Such cases can do that to a person.
"It's so weak though, Why? What can it do?"
"It takes time, and with time, spirits transform. Their ties to their death become lower and lower, and only once they're free can they bring chaos and their vileness to the world. Isn't that right, little ghost?"
Constantine stared at the male ghost, held prisoner in the bottler with narrowed eyes, and added, seemingly speaking to himself, "No no, I know, I know. You may have succeeded if you faced someone inexperienced, but that, I am not."
"Not convinced? Well, I will recount to you my findings. You raped your daughter... She jumped off the balcony to her death..."
The more Constantine spoke, the more fear surfaced on the ghost's fuzzy face, but the former wasn't done just yet.
"Your wife had her suspicions, but she didn't have time to think about them because... She became lost. She was losing her mind, lifeless, suicidal thoughts."
Constantine let out a chuckle as he shook his head, "You know, I believe you. You didn't kill her. She killed herself and brought you down with her because you don't deserve to live."
"Ghahnghhhh!" A shrill scream escaped the bottle, a sound so piercing it made several cracks appear on the bottle before it broke, quite easily Ian may say.
"Against demonic entities, you should remain on guar..." Constantine's words suddenly halted as the latter looked at the scene before him with wide eyes.
Right before him, Ian reacted quickly to the ghost's activity as he leaped back with surprising flexibility, and at a moment's notice, in accordance with his call, a grey-ish Staff appeared in his hand.
The staff's head was pointy, and sharp, like a spear. Ian's life force flowed through his hand into the staff as naturally as the flow of water.
The ghost didn't seem to react, perhaps because of Ian's agility or perhaps he didn't think to take him seriously.
Either way, the staff went right through the ghost, and Ian felt it instantly. The staff was absorbing the ghost's life force at an alarming rate, to the point that it vanished from existence in less than a second.
A very contradictory concept. Ghosts are presumed to be dead creatures, so in theory, they should have no life force, yet they do. A very tiny, minuscule amount, but it's there.
'Something to be investigated later. Moreover...' The absorption of the ghost's life force wasn't the only reason the ghost was eliminated. The simplest reason is that the staff tore him to shreds. It's after all not a normal staff but one constructed by the wisdom and vision of Ian, and the charity of several demons.
"You... Why have I never heard of such an artifact? What does it do? What are those?" Constantine quickly approached Ian with a look of interest as he spewed question after question.
Ian however just eyed him with a look that obviously says, 'Do you think I would tell even after all of this?'
"Then can I just see it? Please, it's not much to ask for, is it?" The exorcist didn't give just yet.
"Sure," Surprisingly, Ian agreed. He even had a bright smile as he handed him the staff.
Only, Constantine didn't take it, but looked at Ian with suspicions, "Do you know what. I am not known for preying on other people's business, so I'll respect your privacy." He knew he made the right decision directly after he finished his words. On Ian's pale, and seemingly harmless face was a look of disappointment, "Ok, whatever."
Anyone who touches the staff will have their life force sucked dry in a matter of minutes, or perhaps even seconds. In contrast to the first black ring he constructed, the staff had no limits though it still couldn't absorb too much of Ian's life force, almost as if that's forbidden.
In fact, Ian went as far as to make all of his five rings like that, absorbing as much life force from him as they could, and that proved to be a good move as Ian has come to find an interesting thing about his life force...
Things naturally flowed from there. Ian and Constantine were great partners, absolutely not trying to set themselves up every like second.
They went to jobs and finished them cleanly most of the time. Nothing too significant at all. The only problem was that some jobs take too long.
All Ian did in his free time is to read some magical books and run the Roses from afar. He's still the family head after all, and there is a lot to take care of.
Now, one might assume that three books at the end of every successful job are too much. Perhaps Constantine agreeing to that was foolish? What a joke. A master of deception like him wouldn't make such a mistake in his normal state of mind.
Most of the books given to him weren't useful. They always had something magical to them, but it was very vague though still valuable nonetheless.
Constantine of course wouldn't go too far lest he draws Ian's ire. Among those books were ones that have value, some more than others, some extremely so.
It would be safe to say that Ian would be having a headache at every moment of every day. From learning about magic, and mystic books to an interesting project he's working on at different dimensions, his rings' shared pocket dimension. He's even working on a new project for his Staff of all things.
Well, that wouldn't be safe to say as Ian was in a constant loss of his life force, a steady absorption from his rings and even the staff, and due to him continually losing his life force, he found himself to be quite energetic. His need for sleep was getting lower, and tiredness was becoming a rare word in his life.
That makes sense, right? Just lose your life force and you should be okay. Ian was of course making many deductions on why that is, but didn't give it that much thought for now.
One thing at a time, and at this time, the thing within his hands was his focus. The staff of all things. It was a slow process of constantly feeding it his life force with clear intent.
Only two vessels of the Staff were full, Green and Red Kryptonite energy. At the moment, the Red energy was flowing towards the green one, leaving its home vessel and joining the other familiar energy, forming what looks like a small cluster of Red energy next to the Green one.
Clearly, Ian's intent is to merge the two similar energies to free a vessel. The process was proving to be more difficult than expected though.
The majority of his focus was still on magic though. He learned from the books and solved whatever doubts he has by simply calling Zatanna.
He's been calling her quite a lot recently, and she seems to be enjoying his calls, albeit, she was still disappointed Constantine is still safe and sound even after all this time... Ian has a plan, but why toss away a lemon when there is still juice in it?
It was but two weeks before Ian finally found himself participating in a case that was way more interesting than any before, "God I hate magic, but I'm sure I will come to love it when I can use it." Ian Rose.
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