Constantine - The Novelization - Whoa is (Not)

Constantine had come out of the conjuring with his own life, for what it was worth, but not"Nige" - the First of the Fallen had torn the unfortunate Archer limb from limb....And Constantine's Scottish friend Header had died too - shot while caught with Constantinetrying to steal a key grimoire: an ancient book of magic spells. It'd taken Header a painfully longtime to die from his wounds....Then there was Father Hennessy, and Beeman. They'd still be alive if they hadn't gottenmixed up with Constantine.All his friends, his true love, his own infant brother... all of them were blighted, cursed byassociation with him. Somehow the karma for all that had propelled him here, to this corridorand this comer.And now he was about to sacrifice Chaz and Angela.Well, he would have his punishment. No matter how this went for the world - chances weretoday was "the end of the world" for John Constantine.He felt the atmosphere charged with fury... smelled the decay sweating from the wall... heardthe nauseating babble of Hell-speak.He walked around the comer in the corridor, and through two quite nondescript double doors,murmuring, as he went: "One. Last. Show."EIGHTEENIt was a waiting room packed with half-breeds. It was appropriate, Constantine decided, that heshould come to a waiting room in that moment, when all the waiting for retribution should beover, because the whole human world was a waiting room. You waited to grow up, you waitedto grow older, you waited to deteriorate, you waited to die. It was all temporary in this mortalworld. Only the next world - whichever next world you drew - had anything truly lastingly realabout it. Only then could the waiting be over once and for all.This earthly waiting room was crowded with the unearthly. At first they looked like ordinarypeople, as seen strolling the streets or sitting placidly in restaurants: lawyers, brokers, soccermoms, truck drivers, PE teachers - several PE teachers. Each in their uniform, their departmentstore clothing, their hairdo from Supercuts or Mister Gig. After a moment he shifted the filter onhis psychic lens, and their real form flashed out: He saw their horns, their tails, their fangs, theirtaloned hands, and eyes the color of the La Brea tar pit.And the sickening babble of Hell-speak broke off; they all went dead quiet as he came in.They were all turning to look at him, at once. They all had the same thought:Constantine!"Hi," Constantine said, his voice as cool and firm as that of the leader of a self-help seminar."My name's John."They all just stared at him. Incredulous that he should face them all at once - and that heshould face them with so little apparent fear."Come on," Constantine continued. He lifted his hands like a symphony conductor. "Alltogether now: ‘Hi John!'"There was no response. They just stared balefully.Waiting for some signal to tear him to pieces. Each one hoping he'd get to be the one who gotto disembowel John Constantine. Thinking that maybe the boss, the First of the Fallen, hadreserved that pleasure for himself.