Constantine - The Novelization - Whoa is (Not)

around. The air was suffused with Hell's ubiquitous noise, overwhelming even the chorus ofscreams: the wet multitudinous gnashing of millions of jaws chewing at human flesh. She stoodup and saw that the tubs in the room were full - with blood. The walls were cracked; she couldsee flame through the cracks, making them waver; the air was foul with ash and despair.She knew she was not here as one of the condemned but as a visitor, with a connection toEarth that the condemned didn't have; she was the kind of specialized traveler to Hell she'd beenonce before - only this time she had been brought against her will. By whom?Francisco was gone. But someone else was nearby, someone who was looking right at her.Someone behind her. He was coming at her from behind, focusing his terrible attention on her."Angela...," came the rasping voice. He repeated her name, almost lovingly, the syllablesoozing with slime. "An... gel... a..." Somehow when he spoke her name he turned it into anobscenity. But then, any human word that Mammon spoke became an obscenity.She made herself turn and look at him.She was a strong woman. There weren't any stronger women. And she'd seen some terriblethings, in her short life as a cop, that hadn't made her scream. She'd screamed only once before,seeing Hell. She didn't scream easily.But right now, seeing Mammon, Angela Dodson screamed long and loud.--There were three demons still coming at Constantine, slavering for blood, flesh, and soul -when his shotgun jammed.One of them, in a priest's collar, crouched like a cat about to leap at a mouse, grinned at him...teeth falling out of the grin, the right side of its face sloughing off with the effort at facialexpression."Now you're mine, my boy...," it said, its voice thickly distorted by its rotting tongue.Constantine recognized that voice. It was the priest who'd stood by when the other one hadtried to exorcise him, in his boyhood. The demon masquerading as a man of God.Constantine shouted and tried furiously to clear his weapon - he wanted with all his heart toblow the demon priest to Hell...But it leapt at his throat, as the others came at him from the right and left, yowling withmurderous delight.Constantine couldn't get the gun unjammed in time. He was fucked.But someone fired a gun from behind the demon and it exploded into wet ashes in midair.Constantine stepped back, striking out with his shotgun butt at the one on his right, stoving itsskull in, as the other exploded from another shotgun blast.Both demons fell away - one spasming, clawing at the air, as Constantine bashed its head to apulp, the other flying into shrieking fragments.Gasping for air, heart thudding, Constantine turned to see Chaz, his own smoking shotgun inhand, grinning from the doorway.It was eerily quiet for a moment as they looked at one another - except for the sound of theshadows whispering....Then Constantine nodded his thanks, and got the bent shell cleared from his shotgun. It wouldfire now. He hoped-"John..." Chaz said. "You okay?"Constantine looked at him deadpan. "Why do you ask?"