SLUMS: Arial Avenue The area seems to be a mess, and quite a depressing sight to some. Much of the area that once stood in perfect condition, now lies in a hovel, a pig sty in which the blackest of people reside and do their deeds. Homeless people find shelter in dark, damp alleyways and run-down, even dangerous evicted apartments, as well as run-down shops and cafes. Business is still found in the area, such as small food stores and thrift shops that offer general, basic goods to the public. Prostitutes can be found openly soliciting on corners, and gangs congregate by dark alleys and so forth. A run down hotel and tourist center now lays host to gangs and whores, and the streets themselves are in bad condition. black market, a hot spot for those with interest in the underground, finds itself done mostly in this area, which is a convenience to those not wishing to trek further into the slums. Residing in an old business complex, the market itself seems guarded at almost every hour of the day by gang members and other low-life sorts. The general condition of the area is extremely poor, though a Laundromat or dollar store tends to be the only real conditioned area. The streets are cracked and the lamps dotting and lining the sidewalks seem in terrible condition, some burnt and busted out. Contents: Constantine Obvious exits: Central St. Igros St. Constantine Believe it or not, he has charm: an elusive smile and a cool self- confidence worthy of a cat. He's not particularly impressive physically--a little taller than average, but still at least an inch or two below six feet. His spare build might give the impression of being athletic, but that's more coincidence than anything else. Age-wise, he looks to be somewhere between thirty and forty. His voice, when he speaks, suggests South London, outlined by Liverpudlian origins. Malleable hair blond enough to be nearly yellow carelessly frames his slim features, rarely staying in a single state for any long time. One minute it's sleek and neatly in place; the next it's tousled, almost wild, as if it were restless. In either case, he pays it little attention. To match, his eyes are that intense, striking shade of blue that usually gets compared to the sky, which means that in reality they're nothing like the sky most of the time, but might echo it on a clear autumn day. Considering all of this, it really shouldn't be surprising that his sharp, finely chiseled features look like they're made to be illustrated. He wears a cheap gray suit and a dark blue tie, a lazy parody of formality that's mostly hidden beneath a tan trenchcoat. Black boots finish the outfit below and a single silver stud of an earring finishes it above: he has a rough, base kind of class. For all that Ask has lived her whole life in Espera and Midgard, there are some areas she's just never really explored. And considering where she finds herself now, that might be for the best... were it not for the fact that it's safer to know the area like the back of your hand, here. Less chance of dead- ending or accidentally wandering onto some gang's turf. Still, she seems oblivious to the seedy nature of the area as she skirts a pair of washed-out druggies on the corner and offers an absent smile to the early hooker manning the next alley. John Constantine, on the other hand, has only barely arrived here. In fact, he's currently in the process of procuring more permanent lodgings so he doesn't have to mooch off of others anymore. Not that he minds mooching off of others, but this is just more convenient. He's been slowly moving down the social scale as he seeks out somewhere to live that won't charge much and won't ask questions, and now he emerges, once again unsuccessful, from a rather dingy-looking apartment building. He winds up on the corner next to one Ask as he absently removes a cigarette and a lighter from his pocket. He clicks the lighter a few times to no avail before finally giving up. "Got a light?" he starts to ask the girl nearby. He cuts off as he gets a better look at her--she doesn't seem like a native of this particular area. "Here, should you be in this place?" Pausing on the corner to look around, Ask pays no mind at first to the sandy-haired man who emerges from the building and rummages in his coat. At least until a series of empty clicks come from his hand and he finally asks for a light. Apparently it takes a moment for the words to sink into her brain, because she simply looks at him for a moment before blinking. "Oh! Um. Let me see..." Opening the flap of the messenger bag she carries, she digs around in it for a moment, then goes through several pockets before finally coming up with a box of matches. Taking one out, she strikes it and holds it up for him to light his cigarette. "Here you go!" His second question, as he gets a better look at her, is met with a sweet, if puzzled smile. "Yes?" Doesn't seem like the girl's quite... all there. "Ta," he replies with the absentness of one who doesn't *really* care about pleases and thank yous, putting away his own empty lighter. He takes a long drag off his cigarette, exhales, and then studies Ask neutrally. He really shouldn't leave her to wander around here. Not that it's any of his business, but... John slowly reaches out and waves a hand in front of her face. Hell-o...he lets his hand fall back to his side. "Let me put it this way. Wherever you're going-- would you like to get out of here? I'm not familiar with this city, but I think I've got an extra map you can use..." Shaking the match out, she conscientiously places the used match into a plastic baggy she procures from the bag. One shouldn't litter, after all. The hand waving before her face is blinked at, but otherwise Ask makes no great reaction to it--although she does give him a bit of a strange look, in the vein of 'what are you doing?' She doesn't say this aloud, though, and a moment later seems to forget it about it, as she looks around again rather distractedly. "I... which way did you say?" she mutters, apparently to no one in particular, pushing her hat back so she can scratch her head. "You've got to be clearer than that, come on..." If John has any sensitivity, he might begin to notice a heavier, rather chilly air about her--yet not coming directly from her, but from a few paces to her left, and perhaps a few feet up. And the air is beginning to thicken from other directions, too. "I didn't say any way," John points out dryly--although he has a curious look in his eyes, as if he's beginning to suspect she's not talking to him. Still, he rummages in a coat pocket for a moment. "But give me a moment, I've a map..." He seizes onto what he's looking for and pulls it from his pocket. He's midway through unfolding it when the strange presence strikes him, and he looks up. It's nothing concrete. It rarely is, with him. But he knows something's up. The map lies forgotten, half-opened in his hands; his cigarette dangles between two fingers. "You might want to tell your guide to be careful, love," he comments. "Huh?" Ask blinks at John again, then shakes her head quickly. "Oh! No, I didn't... that is, right. Yeah. A map might be a help." If nothing else, it might help to find that street, rather than wandering around blindly. She's just about to lean over to peer at the map, when he stops unfolding it, looks up, and then looks at her and makes his comment. Which strikes her dumb. Her mouth, half-open to ask what was wrong, stays open as the words stall in her throat. After a second, all she manages is another, "Huh?" Way to come off as intelligent and all there. The next moment, though, her eyes grow round. "Guide...? You mean, you can see them too?" Constantine casually shifts the map into one hand and shakes it the rest of the way open for Ask. Mostly, he does this in order to free his other hand to bring his cigarette to his mouth. "Mmm." He leaves her in suspense for another moment before admitting, "Not *see* them, so much. More know that the buggers are there." A beat, and then, because he doesn't like to give away his capabilities too clearly, "Sometimes." He taps ash off his cigarette. "A word of advice. Whatever it is won't do fuck all for you if get yourself in trouble in this neighborhood, so you probably ought to be moving now." Ask doesn't bend to peer at the map just yet, despite the fact that it's open--she seems much more interested in Constantine right now, turning slightly to face him better and eyes lighting up. "That's amazing! I never knew anyone outside of--er, knew anyone else who could do that! Like, I thought maybe those professional psychics might be able to, but whenever I went to see one they never could, and--just--wow!" She's probably getting a little loud right now in her excitement, though--which, fortunately, she seems to realize a moment later as she looks around, then flushes a little and lowers her voice. A second later, though, another realization hits her, and the pitch goes right back up again as she exclaims, "--you're English!" What that has to do with anything, she's not sure, except that she just noticed it. She'd been a little preoccupied before. It's back down to the sobering, though, and she nods, looking around again with a bit of a chagrined look on her face. She still doesn't seem to be looking at the surroundings itself, though, but instead looking at the air. "... yeah, they're starting to notice me. It always happens. And I probably shouldn't stay out too late if I want to catch the subway back to Espera, but I've gotta do this one thing before I go--I said I would, and they're always so insistent when they're stuck, and you know?" She gesticulates vaguely in the air for a moment, before reaching to take the map and peer at it. "Index, index... now where's Drue Street..." "You haven't been looking in the right places, love," Constantine drawls, and no, it doesn't really sound as much like a pickup line as it looks, I swear. He's just being British. "Luckily for you. You might want to learn how to shield those friends of yours from prying senses--there are people out there in the mess that's the occult world who'd take advantage of a girl like you." Great. He's giving a rather ditzy-seeming girl a lecture on how to protect herself. This is ridiculous. And now she's commenting on his nationality. "Only got to the States the other day," he affirms. He eyes her curiously through the smoke. "They bother you, eh? That's just like 'em. Bloody ghosts," he says sourly. "Hmm... Drue... there it is, and this is... Arial Avenue... Mm? Oh, well, could be!" Ask agrees easily enough, looking up from her perusal of the map, and luckily she doesn't seem to pick up on the sleaze potential inherent in the line. "But then I don't usually look anywhere except for Midgard. And then I'm usually not looking at all, so really maybe it's not that surprising that I haven't found anybody? But still..." Wow. "What's your name, mister?" The matter of shielding is given a moment of thought, before she frowns. "Is that possible?" she asks. "I've never heard of anything like that--wait, occult world?" Looks like this little outing is giving her more to chew on than she'd thought. Oh, she'd thought when the ghost of the little boy accosted her, I'll just make a side trip to the Projects and get his stuffed bear, it won't take half a second, and then head home... and then she manages to run into this newly-arrived Englishman who can see--or at least sense--dead people too. Though speaking of John. "That's cool!" Ask says with the rather shallow, but sincere enthusiasm of your average teenaged girl. "So are you living here or just visiting? Although this seems like a funny place to go sightseeing." Thus proving that she's not entirely unaware of what the area's like--just that it doesn't seem to concern her much, for some reason. Maybe from a sense of invincibility. "And it's really not a bother! Well, most of the time. Well, when there's not too many of them," she has to amend several times. "Most of the time there aren't that many around, but there just seem to be several around here, and I think they get lonely after a while with no one to talk to and when they see that I can see them they always come by and usually I don't mind chatting except when there get to be a lot like now and in fact do you mind if we keep going this way?" It comes out in one long breathless spool of words, unreeling out until she gets to the end and reaches for his sleeve to tug him along deeper within the Projects. At least she seems to have a better idea of where she's going. The thought of how pathetically sad it is, all those ghosts floating around this sad little slum, only being picked up by sensitives like this girl--it nags at John for a moment, but he brushes it away easily enough. He didn't get where he is (in all kinds of spiritual trouble) by paying attention to his pangs of sympathy. Wait...actually, he did. Damn. Well, he's aware that the best way to help those pitiful ghosts is to help this girl. "My name's John," he says, "and I'll be spending a lot of time here on business for a while." Sort of. He regards her dubiously as she tugs at him, but he follows without protest. "I'm headed that way for a bit anyway...although I should turn off in a block." He pauses for a moment, then finally returns to the matter of 'the occult world,' albeit obliquely. "You're a lucky girl if you've never had trouble with...certain types of people before, with your sensitivity--or whatever the hell it is. Mmm..." He rummages in a pocket and pulls out a scrap of paper, then a pen. Propping it up on a wall, he scrawls something on it. "Drop by this bloke sometime and ask him about psychic self-defense. If he gives you any trouble, tell him Constantine sent you. He owes me." Tough having some kind of conscience--even if it's a tattered one--in the business, eh? Normally Ask would try to do something about the ghosts here--she usually tries with any others--but there's just so many. Even just the one boy she'd encountered earlier, who's now tagging along behind her with hopeful eyes, has taken the better part of an hour. Even if he did lead to an interesting contact. "I'm Ask!" she replies brightly in turn. "Well, Askiana, actually, but nearly everybody calls me Ask, except when I'm in trouble. Nice to meetcha, John." She doesn't stick her hand out to shake, but she does flash a grin at him, even as she keeps her quick pace up. "Well... I don't talk about it much," Ask admits. So perhaps she shouldn't have talked about it now? Only then does it seem to occur to her, and she blinks at John for a moment before practically shrugging to herself. Cat's out of the bag, no use crying over spilt milk, and all that. "And I've yet to meet anybody who was sensitive enough to pick up on them, or if they were, to mention it." So far as she's aware, she and her father are the only ones who can do anything like that. Pausing as he pulls out a pen and paper, she takes the slip of paper curiously and looks at the name and address. Hmm--not too far away from the hospital. Maybe she can drop by there sometime before or after work. "... oh, but... I mean, if you're sure. That's really nice of you. Thanks!" Even if he's not actually doing anything except providing reference and a name to drop. "I'll have to look into that. I didn't know there could be a problem with other people." Demons and other such beings, yes. But in such cases she's usually protected by heavy wards and diagrams. But here's Drue, and there Ask needs to go. "Ah, here it is," she says aloud, peering up at the grubby street sign as she stuffs the slip of paper into her pocket. "I'm going this way, but it was nice meeting you, Mr. Constantine! This look like home, Terence?" she asks over her shoulder. Apparently getting an affirmative answer, she nods, then offers a wave and a "Bye!" before hurrying off down the street. Yeah, it takes a paranoid bastard like Constantine to come up with the idea of people taking advantage of Ask. It doesn't hurt that he's known plenty of people who would. But that's the sort of person he associates with. For that matter, *he* wouldn't hesitate to take advantage of her ability if he thought it'd benefit his schemes somehow. For the good of, oh, saving the world, of course. Or getting himself out of a really tight spot. But mostly saving the world. Yes. He smiles back at her, a quick, sharp expression. "G'luck, Ask," he says, and he lifts a hand briefly as she darts off down the street. "Don't let the bastards get to you and...all that." But she's out of hearing range by the time he gets to that part. He shrugs, takes a drag off his dwindling cigarette, and turns to go on his way.