X-Writers is a non-profit e-mail fan-fiction group using characters that
belong to Marvel Entertainment's and DC Comics. We do not have permission
to use these characters. We do not mean any harm, we come in peace,
take us to your leader.

This occurs between Excalibur #95 and #96 and after the Wisdom LS.

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X-Men Unlimited #11  "Spirit Move"
Written by Alasdair Watson and Marysia
Edited by Marysia
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[Prologue]

Dawn broke, sending pure light rolling across the
fields on the Scottish/ English border.  It revealed a
young Scottish girl out walking, a rucksack on her
back and a carry-all in her hand.  She had no idea how
long she'd been walking, or even why.  All she knew
was that walk she must, until she reached the border.
What was to happen there was unclear, but the voices
in her head told her it would be important.

The voices had begun about 2 weeks back.  At first,
Catherine was able to shut them out.  As time passed,
they became more insistent that she make this journey.
In the end, despite her resistance, despite the fact
that she knew she ought to be at work, she had packed,
zombie-like and set off.  Now she was almost at the
border.


[London - A beginning.  Or perhaps an ending.]

Dirty yellow light filtered into the room, spilling
across the bed.  The sole occupant of the bed stirred
slightly, and pulled the covers over its head.  The
clock by the bed read 8:30 am, it's red digits no
longer casting any significant amount of light with
the coming of the sun.

Now, the clock read 10:00 am, and sounds of coughing
could be heard from under the covers.  A hand emerged,
trailing an arm.  The hand felt around on the smooth
surface beside the bed, until it found a small box,
and a plastic cylinder.  Then a head emerged, topped
by a shock of blonde hair.  It coughed again.

John lit his first cigarette of the day, and took a
long drag, feeling the smoke settle in his lungs.  He
reached out his other hand, and picked up the TV
remote control.  The TV came on filling the room.

"And the weather in the sou..... [blare of trumpets] We
interrupt this program for an important news flash.
Thousands are feared drowned after..... after.....
This is a wind up, right?  This has to be a joke."
The usually calm broad-caster, the epitome of
unflappability, even at breakfast time, had gone pale.

"It's not a joke?  You're sure?"

"Ahem.  Thousands are feared drowned after a five mile
strip of northernmost England sank into the sea.
Geologists are at a loss to explain how the land, a
strip five miles wide, running parallel with the
Scottish border could simply have sunk into the sea.
A rescue operation is being mounted, but hopes are slim."

John was already out of bed, dressed, and packing a
suitcase, while the bloke on the TV talked on.  Some
kind of interview with a geologist at the scene.

"....est reports available, at sometime around 7 this
morning the land simply sank.  There was no specific
quake, or shifting of tectonic plates, as there is no
fault line there and we could discern no epicentre,
the land simply sank.  One minute it was there, the
next a bloody great whack of sea water was rushing in
to fill in the gap.  We've got no clue what has
happened, and frankly, we were hoping you clever
buggers at the Beeb might be able to come up with
something.  This area's usually very tectonically
stable.  Anyway, none of our recording centres could
register anything other than a smoothly distributed
rumble."

The poor sod looked a little wild about the eyes.
John wasn't surprised.


[Sometime later, John is on the phone]

"Look, just come and pick me up will you?  I need to
get up to Scotland, so I need you to get me to the
airport."

"Yeah, probably.  I reckon I'd better check it out
anyway. "

"Oh, easy.  Evidently they've got a new bloke in
William Hill who'd not heard about me yet."

- - - -

Chas' cab smelled like it always did, a combination of
stale cigarette smoke, which didn't bother John, who
was lighting up anyway, and last night's puke, which did.

"So how's her indoors then?  Calmed down any?"

"You must be bleeding joking!  You didn't need to go
prowlin' around in the back garden like that!"

"Sorry about that.  I didn't know she'd be out there."

"You could have rung and let me know you were comin' "

"No time."

"There never is with you, is there?"

"Look, Chas, I don't need this.  Three hundred and
fifty square miles of prime countryside has just sunk
without any reason and the whole thing smells worse
that your week old socks.  The fact that I nearly saw
your Missus in the altogether is not something I need
to be reminded of.  I'm still having nightmares.  What
was she doing out there like that in January anyway?
It was bloody cold that day, I know."

"Oh, she'd seen some shite on the Telly, about Chinky
exercise early in the morning.  Apparently it works
better with nothing on."

"Sounds like a right load of old bollocks.  All the
Orientals I've seen do Tai Chi practice with their
clothes on.  Leave it to the English to bugger up a
perfectly good meditation tool, just because some smug
bugger on Anne and Nick said that frostbite was good
for you."

"Here we are, Heathrow Airport.  Cheers John.  See you
down the Northampton when you get back?"

"Yeah, see you."

John got out of the cab, retrieved his suitcase from
the back and headed in, putting his cigarette out as
he did.  Bloody airports.


<Muir Island: early morning >

Excalibur didn't get the courtesy of finding out after
they chose to wake.  At 7.26am alarms blared through
the old house rousing those who were still in bed.
The emergency services had called in everyone they
thought could help and that included them.

They staggered into the actual research station ten
minutes later.  Moira, who had been there all night,
had answered the call.  She looked haggard, but not
from the news.  "There's bin some sort o' disaster
doon south," she told them.  Her voice was lethargic.
"Th' police want ye tae go help.  Somethin' `bout land
sinkin' round th' border.  They'll be somewan tae meet
ye in Gretna Green."

"Land sinking?" inquired Kurt.

"Who cares," grumped Kitty.  "Let's just go."  She'd
been having a really good dream about Pete, not that
she'd admit that to anyone.

"Ah didnae ask whit it wis all aboot, ah jist took the
message.  Ah have tae get back tae the lab, ah left
Doom wi' Unuscione an' God only knows whit he's
doin'."  She vanished back downstairs.

With a shrug and a worried look Kurt, who had
teleported in, led the team to the hanger.  Whether
his look pertained to where they were headed, Moira's
health or what Doom might be up to was anyone's guess.
Brian hung back a moment.  He was wanting to get out
of the super-heroing a bit, but if people needed help
it wasn't as if he had anything better to do.  He
couldn't even help Moira much, his training was in
nuclear physics not medicine or genetics.  He followed
Kurt, Meggan, Kitty, Douglock and Rahne.


[Glasgow Central Station]

The plane had touched down an hour or so ago.  John
was now standing in the Station, waiting for a train
to Gretna Green, which had suddenly become even more
of a coastal town than it had been previously.  He
considered buying some food on the train, then
realised that even his win on the horses wasn't going
to get him anything edible on the train.  He settled
for buying a Mars Bar, a Coke, and a pack of Silk Cut
at a convenience in the station, and lit up.  Just as
he did, the train arrived.  Bloody typical really.  He
ground his cigarette under his heel, and climbed
aboard.


[Gretna Green: near sunset]

John left his case up in his room in one of the town's
many hotels, and went for a walk, to see the lie of
the land, as it were.  It wasn't quite what he'd
expected.  One side of the town had pleasant beaches,
two others had countryside.  The final side had a
smooth, sheer cliff, utterly unclimable without some
serious equipment, that stretched off to the east as
far as the eye could see.  John would have bet that
the entire (rather sudden) south coast of Scotland was
the same.

There was a brisk breeze coming in off the sea,
ruffling his hair and tugging at his coat.  John
inhaled, smelling the salt tang of the sea, the smell
of smoke from coal fires, and the unmistakable scent
of cow dung.  He'd not been sure what to expect, but
this wasn't it.  He'd expected powerful occult forces,
or something like that, not business as usual.  In
fact the whole place felt.... happy, for want of a
better word.  It was as if the land was in good
spirits.  Obviously, the people of the town were less
than cheerful, given that their major source of income
had just been removed, but the land itself felt cheery.

Sparking up, he concluded that something was
definitely up.


<Gretna Green: that morning >

Excalibur arrived to a scene of chaos.  There was a
scar ripped across the land and rock strata that had
lain hidden for millions of years were bared to the
elements along a five mile wide channel of writhing
sea water.  Helicopters swarmed over the area.  The
team stared, open-mouthed, as Brian over-flew the area
quickly.

"It's pretty deep," he noted.

Kurt shook his head, "I doubt there will be many
survivors here to rescue.  When the sea came crashing
in it will have killed most people instantly. Were
there... any major towns in the area?"

Kitty studied a map, "The outskirts of Carlisle on the
west coast and Berwick on Tweed in the east.  The rest
was pretty empty."

"We should head back west to Carlisle," decided Kurt.
"If it only hit part of it we can probably be of most
help there."

As they sped back west they watched in amazement as
rivers emptied themselves off the lowering cliff face
in rainbowed sprays.  It was a beautiful, awe
inspiring and terrifying site.  For what could have
caused such mass devastation with so few consequences
to the land on either side?  A line that followed the
border of Scotland so closely it could only be
purposeful.  Of course Scotland would not escape
physical damage, nature would not allow such a perfect
90 degree cliff to stand for long.  Erosion would push
it back and wear it down until in a million years time
smooth beaches lay along this coast.  As if Scotland
and England had never been one.

They came in site of Carlisle, lying on lower land and
so closer to the crashing waves of what would come to
be known as "Wallaces' Revenge" by many of the Scots
and simply the "Scottish Channel" by the rest of the
world.


<John's hotel room>

John studied the OS map of the border area he'd bought
from the newsagent down the road.  There'd have to be
some major changes made to it, and soon.  Still, it
would probably serve.  He'd never been much good at
direct divination magic, preferring instead to simply
keep his eyes and ears open, but in the absence of any
other ideas, he'd give it a try.

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and relaxed,
emptying his mind of everything but the desire for
knowledge.  Then, slowly, so as not to disturb his
relaxed state, he raised one hand, and brought the tip
of his index finger down on the map.

He opened his eyes.  His finger rested very near the
border (cliff) on an otherwise unremarkable area near
the small town of Coldstream.  Typical.  Right the way
on the other side of the country.  Time to get some
sleep.  He'd set off in the morning.


<Midday, the following day>

John paid the driver, and looked around as the cab
drove off.  This was the place all right.  This close,
he could feel the power in the air.  Again, not the
magic he'd been expecting, but power, nonetheless.  He
lit a cigarette, and started walking, out across the
fields.  He'd not gone ten paces before he trod in
something rural.  He was beginning to remember why he
liked living in cities.

After a walk of about half an hour, he came upon a
tent.  He could hear a voice.

"Why won' ye just leave me alone?"  The voice was that
of a young Scottish girl, obviously distressed.

The hairs on the back of John's neck stood up.  Well,
this was the right place.  He coughed to announce
himself.  Almost immediately, the tent flap was pulled
back, and a head topped with brown hair looked out.  A
girl of no older than 18 looked out.

"Who the fuck're you?"

"Me?  Someone who heard someone in trouble, and came
to help."

"Whit makes ye think ah'm in trouble?"

John pointed.  "There's a bloody great puddle a bit
that way that says that there's a whole lot of people
in trouble."

"Whit makes ye think ah've anything t' do wi' it?"

"Lucky guess.  That and the fact that you've got the
look of someone who has had a *really* bad couple of
days.  Besides, you're the one who said you had
anything to do with it, not me."

"Aye, well, what's it to ye?"

"I'm not really sure.  I suppose I'm curious, and I
suspect you need to talk to someone."

At that point, Catherine burst into tears.

After John had calmed her down, she told him her
story.  She'd been a normal girl, living in Edinburgh,
working as a secretary, until one day she'd started to
hear voices.  She'd feared she was going mad, but
didn't know who to tell.  Her family had all died a
short time before when a gas main had exploded under
their house.  She had few friends, and most of them
were only really casual acquaintances.

In the end, she'd done what the voices wanted.  Now at
least she knew she wasn't going mad.  Now she was
terrified of herself.  She had no idea what to do
next.  In the end, all cried out, she'd fallen asleep,
exhausted from the emotional stress.

John sat on the hill-side, staring down at the sudden
sea, a thin line of blue smoke rising straight up from
his cigarette.  This wasn't sorcery, not of any kind
he'd seen before, and he'd seen pretty much all of
them.  There was a spiritual residue around the girl,
almost as if she'd recently been possessed by some
sort of spirit, but if it had been a spirit, it was a
new one on John.

He'd seen devils, and smelled the lingering stench of
black they left behind.  He'd seen angels, and felt
the traces of light that lingered behind like the
traces of candy floss left on a stick.  He'd seen
ghosts, and heard the ringing of graves that lurked in
their wake.  He'd even dealt with a ghost dog once.
What he'd never experienced was the feel of whiskey,
coupled with the smell of the Highlands as well as the
violence of the inner city.

Some thing was up, and John kept waiting for it to
land on him.

- - - -

It had been a hard day yesterday and Excalibur had
done what they could.  Amanda teleporting in to join
them as soon as she could.  Part of the team or not,
she, like Brian, could not stand idly by in such a
situation.  But most of the urgent work was done, the
cataclysm so sudden and so complete that there was
nothing that could be done for the towns swallowed by
icy sea water.  Now they were on the track of the
cause of this disaster.  Kurt had logged on to Cerebro
and scanned the area, there was a definite mutant
presence near the town of Coldstream.  A presence that
had shown a peak of activity around 7am the previous
morning.

- - - -

And yes, here was the other shoe.  Something bearing a
vague resemblance to a black airborne whale was coming
in to land nearby.  It touched down and various
figures climbed out.  All of them were wearing spandex
of some description, and one was covered in short blue
fur.

"Bleedin' Nora!  Keep it down, the girlie's asleep!"

Excalibur were more than a bit taken aback by the
sight of a bloke in a trenchcoat sitting smoking by a
tent, apparently without a care in the world.
Nevertheless, they advanced, cautiously.  This could
be a trap.

"You'd be Excalibur then?  Pete Wisdom's mates?"

Now, they were more than taken aback.  If any of them
had been asked to compile a list of things they might
have expected to find here, this would *not* have been
it.  A Londoner, who apparently knew Pete.  Had he
caused this?  If so, why?  And if he was a bad guy,
what had become of Pete?  Kurt recovered himself first.

"Errr, yes, that's us.  And you are?"

"John.  John Constantine.  So, what're you lot doing
here?  Oh, listen, would you mind if we walk a bit
away from the tent?  Only Cathy just fell asleep, and
I think she could use the rest.  Don't want to wake
her.  If your bloody great stealth bomber there hasn't
already."

Yes, he had definitely caught them wrong footed.  This
wasn't the fight they'd been expecting.  Still, if it
wasn't a fight, that was all to the good.

"Certainly."  Kurt gestured, indicating that John
should lead the way.  "As to what we're doing here,
well, we're trying to find out why a large part of
North England just fell into the sea, and all the
available information we have indicated that the
probable cause was somewhere around here.  This is
going to sound stupid but you're not it, are you?"

"Me?  Do I look like the sort of bloke who sinks bits
of England?"

"I don't know, I've never met anyone who sank bits of
England before now."

"Well, no, I'm not the one.  I suspect Catherine is.
Young lady in the tent back there.  How did you figure
it out?"

"Well, we're affiliated with the group called the X-Men, 
who have a computer that detects mutants.  It registered 
a power spike coming from this area at around the time 
of the disaster."

"So she's a mutant then?  Hmmm."

"What's that 'hmmm' supposed to mean?" Shadowcat chimed in.

"Only that this makes things even more confusing.  You
see, it looks to me like she was possessed yesterday
and -"

"You're a magician?" Amanda added her voice to the
conversation.

"Ha!  Nah, there's no such thing as magic.  I'm just a
smart bloke, who keeps his eyes open."

"But if there's no such thing as magic?" Amanda sounded 
confused.

"Heh.  Fancy yourself a bit of a sorceress, do you?"

"I'm progressing along the Winding Way, yes."

"Ha!  Who taught you that kind of mystic mumbo jumbo?"

"My mother, the sorceress Margali"  By her voice there
was something she wasn't adding.  John filed that for
later investigation.

"Well, take it from me, it's all crap.  It's a bunch
of folks poncing around muttering about levels of
power, and wiggling their fingers in ways that are
going to give them chronic arthritis."

"You'll pardon me if I don't accept the word of a
total stranger over something I've been practising
most of my life."  Amanda was already beginning to
dislike this man, intensely.  "Anyway, I can discern
no spirit about the girl."

"That's because you're looking at it wrong.  She's not
possessed now, for a start, and for another thing, you
have no idea what you mean when you say spirit, do
you?  Anyway, this isn't the time or place for a
discussion on magical theory.  Pop down to London at
some point, and we can talk about it, but right now we
have to decide what's to be done with the girl."

"Well, the first thing to do is to get her to Muir
Isle where we can run some tests!" Brian exclaimed.

"Oh, Christ, a bloody scientist!  Listen, chummy, all
the tests are going to tell you is that she's a mutant,
assuming she is one."

"Look, I don't care for your tone, Constantine!" Brian
remarked.  "Anyway, we can find out exactly what her
mutant power is on Muir, and train her to control it."

"Oh.  Right then."

John felt a bit stupid.  Not that that was a new
sensation.  Still, something in him said that this
wasn't the answer.  Better to  play along for now,
until he could figure it out properly.  Besides it
wasn't very often he got to meet super heroes, and he
was slightly impressed by them despite himself.  Not
that you'd see him farting about in spandex and 
giving himself a code-name anytime soon, though he was 
definitly in favour of it on women, he thought, looking 
the blond one up and down.

"Well, If you don't mind I'll tag along with you.
Something tells me I'm going to be needed."

"What makes you think we need help from the likes of
you, Constantine?"  Brian asked.

Just at that moment, Catherine woke up and stuck her
head out of the tent.  And screamed in fear at the sight
of the "heroes".  "I was an accident, I swear!" she 
gasped, scrambling to grab her stuff and make a run for
it if necessary.

"That, for one." John said, flicking his cigarette away.

----

The plane touched down on Muir.  It had taken John the
better part of an hour to convince Catherine that
these people could help, even if one of them did look
like a demon. (John had to keep from sniggering at
this description of Kurt.  No demon he'd seen had ever
been so good looking.)  Still, they were here now.

And some time later, the results of the tests Moira
had been persuaded to run (all the while complaining
about "Bloody sassenachs in mah lab, wi' their filthy
cigarettes!" and "Ah jist got shut o' Wisdom, and
another one turns up.") had finally come in.  And much
to everyone's surprise (except John's) they revealed
very little.  The girl was definitely a mutant, and
her power was in some ways similar to Meggans', in that
it was part empathic/part elemental in nature, but
there the similarity ended.

It was a day later and John was out for a walk and
a cigarette, when he noticed another figure out
walking around the island.  The figure was tall, and
wore a metal mask over his face.  There was
unmistakably some kind of occult power about him, so 
maybe he'd be more useful than the rest.

"'Ere Metal Mickey!"

"I presume it is I to whom you refer.  I advise you to
show a little more respect, and address me by my given
name, Doom.  What do you want?"

"Ah.  Right.  Well, it's like this.  The girl that
caused the bother in England the other day is about here.
Apparently she's a mutant, and well, I thought you
might be able to help out."

"And what makes you think I have any interest in
helping you?  Or these fools on this island?"

"Not a lot, really, but I figured I'd ask.  Oh, the
names Constantine, by the way.  You might have heard
about me."

"Hmmm.  Perhaps I will help you.  If one of your ilk
is involved in this, then perhaps it is rather more
than the usual mutant drivel."

"I dunno yet, but there's something that doesn't sit
right about all this with me."


[A short while later, Doom and John are talking
outside the medlab]

"Incredible."

"So, you agree then?  I figured it was something like
that meself, but it never hurts to have a little
corroboration."

"Indeed.  She appears to have the mutant power to
channel the spirit of an entire country.  It does
surprise me that in a place such as Scotland, the
spirit of the country was able to want one thing above
all others for as long as it would have taken to
accomplish that.  Latveria, on the other hand..."

John could see the power lust in Doom's eyes.  It was
then he realised he'd made a mistake.  Letting a
ruler, even one in exile know of the existence of a
power like that was a serious mistake.  He cursed
himself inwardly.

"Yeah, well, I guess she was just unlucky.  She could
have gone her entire life not knowing, but something
happened.  Anyway, cheers mate, I'll see you around."

With that, John walked away, trying to act casual.  As
soon as he was out of sight, he broke into a flat run,
trying to find a member of Excalibur.  As luck would
have it, he came across Kurt first.  He didn't mind
Kurt, who at least seemed to have *some* brains.
Braddock, on the other hand, stuck him as a complete
wanker, but Wagner seemed to have some sort of
connection to reality.  Even if he was religious.

"Was? Constantine?"

"Shit.  I've made a *very* bad mistake, and I need
your help.  Listen, is there a phone somewhere I can
use?"

"Certainly.  What is going on?"

"I introduced Doom to Cathy.  He agreed with me about
the nature of her power.  I forgot that he's a monarch
in his spare time."

"You know what her power is?"

"Yeah, she channels the spirit of countries.  Normally, 
that wouldn't be a problem, 'cos most countries have got 
too many conflicting opinions inside.  Trouble was, 
something happened here that made almost everybody in the 
country want to get away from England.  I can sort out 
what that was later, but for now, we have to hide her 
from Doom."

"Eh?"

"Just trust me, OK?"

"Why do I always get nervous when people say that to me?"


[Some time later John is on the phone, again.]

"'lo, Pete?  Yeah, John here."

"Badly.  Listen, I need you to do me a favour.  Can
you meet me at Heathrow this evening?  I'd call Chas,
but I really don't want him anywhere near this one."

"Actually, I'm up in Scotland, with some of your old
mates."

"It's a long story.  Listen, will you meet us or not?"

"Cheers.  See you later."

John hung up, and turned to see Moira standing nearby.

"Jist whit d'ye plan on doin' then?"

"I'm not sure yet, but we've got to get Cathy away
from the tin faced loon out there.  Wisdom's meeting
us in London, and we'll work out something from there.
Is she ready?"

"Aye, an' the 'Runner's ready tae go."

"Nah, we can't take the plane.  I want to sneak away.
You got a boat we can use?  We'll get the train to
some airport or other, and fly down commercially to
London."

"Aye, right enough, that might be for the best.  We'll
try to keep Doom distracted for a wee while yet, an'
get ye a decent heid start."
------------------------------------------------------

To Be continued in Angels and Demons #1.  How long before Doom comes
looking for John?  And can John actually managed to hold him off?